On November 23 2011 14:49 Larsa23 wrote: In BW late game is passive too.
I lost a couple games just by being the one who attacked. Mainly PvZ and I beat someone for doing the same to me.
It sounds exactly the same to me but looks easier.
I have to just o_O at this. With PvZ you have to attack all the time, tonnes of zealot pressure, harass with corsairs, drop DT's, storm drops, reaver drops, etc, or else you will just lose.
Yeah but that's just small harrassment.
No one actually sends an entire army without risking a counter attack. Also TvT has always been boring from what I remember and ZvT is more mobile and back and forth.
PvZ and PvT are about small harrassments and waiting for your opponent to fuck up a big attack.
Which is exactly what he said.
Huh? He said BW was passive. o_O
Hurrr
I didn't say it's passive I just said it can be late game and if you have a huge army vs a huge army or in TvT
Because it's the nature of TvT , Siege tanks with large attack range and the ability to deal heavy damage to units, stops people from playing full frontal attack , hence the need for dropship play, wraith harassment, map control , dividing the map into two .
I agree and that's why I don't think his examples were any different than BW because in PvZ if I lose my army I get overran in like a few minutes or less. I remember losing a lot of my games that way so I was always more passive about using my army. There's a ton of pro gamer videos for that too.
And that is also how PvT works and so I don't understand what he means. Don't really care either. Below is an extremely passive PvZ and what I'm talking about.
In the case of PvZ, that's just flat out false. Even if a zerg destroys most of the protoss army, it's nearly impossible to take out a protoss expo defended by cannons/reavers/storms. The zerg's best option in that scenario is to just get complete map control, expand, deny further expos for the protoss and just try to starve the opponent. Trying to bruteforce a protoss (even when you're ahead) is the perfect way to hand the game to your opponent
On November 23 2011 13:35 Ver wrote: sc2 is not remotely like chess.
The difference you noted between bw and sc2 is a combination of simplicity and the superiority of offense over defense. The reason you see so much dancing of armies jockeying for a tiny increase in position in sc2 is because there's so few ways to gain an advantage. Many sc2 games literally come down to the positioning before a fight because nothing else matters remotely as much as winning a battle. In bw engaging correctly was just one of many, many factors in determining victory. Certain players like Jaedong were known for their consistent ability to engage right, while others like iloveoov were particularly bad at it but could win through a variety of other means. In sc2 if you can't engage very well you will never be among the best. When you remove all the nuances of bw that determined skill, you are left with a select very few factors, most notably engaging, but also blind build order luck, that massively determine the outcomes of games because there's so little else to influence the outcome.
The other reason for favoring big battles and massive 1a armies is the ease of movement. Movement in bw is much more subtle and difficult to organize and execute. Position (like high ground) meant much more, all races had various tools which favored defense over offense (reavers/storm in pvz, tanks/mines, scourge/swarm/lurker vs vessels, better static defense, etc). Furthermore, the smooth a.i in sc2 means that it's really easy to attack bases without bothering to micro and do insane damage. Plus there are a number of tools which effectively fight defensive setups (banelings, infested terrans, forcefields, immortals, colossus, marines, marauders) These reasons are exactly why backstabs so good in sc2 compared to bw and why you get many, many more base trades. Ironically, base trades and backstabs happen the most in the matchups most like BW in terms of skill, defense, and positioning: tvz and tvt.
How does this lend itself to big 1a armies? Because if you are devoting say 15-20 supply to a distraction or secondary maneuver, that means your main army will have that much less supply. Therefore it's much easier for you to just get run over by a-move, and that will lose you the game outright in most cases because it's so hard to comeback. You can overcome this advantage to some degree as defense isn't entirely meaningless, particularly in tvz and tvt, but an extra 20ish supply is a lot more meaningful in most cases than a good position. In bw, position is much more important than army size, and you'd routinely see large armies improperly wielded be defeated or warded off by well employed tactics or setups. Someone like Flash couldn't make a fraction of the comebacks he did in bw playing sc2 because it's just too easy to bully your opponent around once you have a lead and you don't have much leverage to 'outplay' someone when behind. Furthermore there are a number of mechanics in place which very effectively dissuade spread out forces in favor of gathering one big army: Terran drops in tvp are absolutely terrifying, but these are more than "balanced" out by feedback, warpins, and blink. Trying to harass past a certain point is often just going to lead to wasted units, which could in turn lower your main army strength for a critical moment and make you vulnerable to getting a moved to death. In TvT the combination of vikings, sensor towers, great mobility of marines and hellions, and powerful turrets has made it very difficult in general to effectively harass behind a certain point.
No this problem isn't going to be fixed with time. It has nothing to do with how young the game is, only a little bit with how bad players are, and everything with how the game is designed. Until that is addressed, the only way things can change is by drastically altering maps to promote more defense and large-scale combat which can help but only to a small degree. Blizzard designed the game to favor offense and ease of use: these are the results of such decisions.
I've also noticed the dancing of armies and jockeying for position in SC2. I also agree that this "decisive clash" is vital in SC2. However, there is still definitely a defenders advantage and my reasoning why players don't devote supply to a secondary maneuver is more their inability to multi-task. Because of this, the risk/reward is to jockey for position to win this decisive battle.
However, I do suggest to increase the supply from 200/200 to maybe 300/300 in 1v1 to help alleviate this army jockeying.
They could just make it easier to kill armies. In SC BW armies die in a few seconds. I played a few PVZ where I was doing really good but the second they attacked my army and I wasn't paying attention half my units were dead before I could storm. lol
On November 23 2011 14:49 Larsa23 wrote: In BW late game is passive too.
I lost a couple games just by being the one who attacked. Mainly PvZ and I beat someone for doing the same to me.
It sounds exactly the same to me but looks easier.
I have to just o_O at this. With PvZ you have to attack all the time, tonnes of zealot pressure, harass with corsairs, drop DT's, storm drops, reaver drops, etc, or else you will just lose.
Yeah but that's just small harrassment.
No one actually sends an entire army without risking a counter attack. Also TvT has always been boring from what I remember and ZvT is more mobile and back and forth.
PvZ and PvT are about small harrassments and waiting for your opponent to fuck up a big attack.
I didn't say it's passive I just said it can be late game and if you have a huge army vs a huge army or in TvT
Because it's the nature of TvT , Siege tanks with large attack range and the ability to deal heavy damage to units, stops people from playing full frontal attack , hence the need for dropship play, wraith harassment, map control , dividing the map into two .
I agree and that's why I don't think his examples were any different than BW because in PvZ if I lose my army I get overran in like a few minutes or less. I remember losing a lot of my games that way so I was always more passive about using my army. There's a ton of pro gamer videos for that too.
And that is also how PvT works and so I don't understand what he means. Don't really care either. Below is an extremely passive PvZ and what I'm talking about.
In the case of PvZ, that's just flat out false. Even if a zerg destroys most of the protoss army, it's nearly impossible to take out a protoss expo defended by cannons/reavers/storms. The zerg's best option in that scenario is to just get complete map control, expand, deny further expos for the protoss and just try to starve the opponent. Trying to bruteforce a protoss (even when you're ahead) is the perfect way to hand the game to your opponent
Unless you are a D+ at best player who doesn't have reavers and storm everywhere. What about when they come to your expo with 50 ultralisks because they killed your main army with nothing but hydralisks.
On November 23 2011 14:50 sluggaslamoo wrote:[quote]
I have to just o_O at this. With PvZ you have to attack all the time, tonnes of zealot pressure, harass with corsairs, drop DT's, storm drops, reaver drops, etc, or else you will just lose.
Yeah but that's just small harrassment.
No one actually sends an entire army without risking a counter attack. Also TvT has always been boring from what I remember and ZvT is more mobile and back and forth.
PvZ and PvT are about small harrassments and waiting for your opponent to fuck up a big attack.
I didn't say it's passive I just said it can be late game and if you have a huge army vs a huge army or in TvT
Because it's the nature of TvT , Siege tanks with large attack range and the ability to deal heavy damage to units, stops people from playing full frontal attack , hence the need for dropship play, wraith harassment, map control , dividing the map into two .
I agree and that's why I don't think his examples were any different than BW because in PvZ if I lose my army I get overran in like a few minutes or less. I remember losing a lot of my games that way so I was always more passive about using my army. There's a ton of pro gamer videos for that too.
And that is also how PvT works and so I don't understand what he means. Don't really care either
You said it was passive look at your first quote.
Also what race are you? maybe you get overran because you don't have the mechanics to mobilize your force while macroing and controlling corsairs. If you keep the overlord count down and harass, you can have your army moving attacking bases all the time. You need to look at pro games, not your own games to justify something like that.
And check out my big fat edit, I put a pvz in there.
Edit: Actually just look at any PvZ with Bisu in it.
Okay well here's the thing. I am not pro enough to multitask like a pro. I get overran because I lose my army and the Zerg ends up flanking me or he has like two armies and my army dies taking out one of his 5 - 6 bases. Then he just gets his army together a lot quicker and overruns me. So when that happens I will just say fuck it because there's no way to reproduce as fast as a Zerg player.
Maybe I am just not good enough whatever. I really hate that moment when my army gets crushed and all you see are the zerg units moving towards your base and you have a few templar zealots and dragoons bunched up.
That means you're fucked. I've survived for a little bit a few times because on maps like python I like to mass cannons at my far expos.
Looking at the bold words, I am not sure whether you are a zerg , terran or protoss , because if you are a zerg and it's a zvz rarely does it go to a 5 hatch v 5 hatch hive tech swarm fest , On the other hand , maybe you are playing terran and played really passively because the muta micro contained you really well in your base for a very long time and he was able to take multiple expansion hence the reason why he was able to macro up after you destroying one of his base , usually zerg's bank would be like 4k mineral and 4k gas and killing one hatch won't make a difference at that point except if you have good upgrade and map control .
Maybe it's because your inexperience ? what rank are you in iccup ? Terran i suppose you play ?
I was a D+ max P player. I was never that amazing. I played PvZ and would lose because of what I said. Even if I overlord harrass it doesn't change the fact that once I attack and get smashed I lose the game.
EVen if I have reinforcements building if the zerg manages to stop me at one choke I cant win anymore or if he kills me out in the open so yeah I was always really passive about that.
PvP was my least passive match up because I found it the easiest to make a comeback in.
I think that it's really shitty how you cant do harrassment attacks in sc2 and if you're behind you have to dance around to get your army as strong as your enemies.
I thought people were already good at doing harrassment techniques
Maybe that's why I prefer terran , I get a lot of opportunity play defensively and yet being offensive with drops and take advantage of zergs having multiple bases because they can't protect every base , some where has to be left undefended .
On November 23 2011 13:35 Ver wrote: sc2 is not remotely like chess.
The difference you noted between bw and sc2 is a combination of simplicity and the superiority of offense over defense. The reason you see so much dancing of armies jockeying for a tiny increase in position in sc2 is because there's so few ways to gain an advantage. Many sc2 games literally come down to the positioning before a fight because nothing else matters remotely as much as winning a battle. In bw engaging correctly was just one of many, many factors in determining victory. Certain players like Jaedong were known for their consistent ability to engage right, while others like iloveoov were particularly bad at it but could win through a variety of other means. In sc2 if you can't engage very well you will never be among the best. When you remove all the nuances of bw that determined skill, you are left with a select very few factors, most notably engaging, but also blind build order luck, that massively determine the outcomes of games because there's so little else to influence the outcome.
The other reason for favoring big battles and massive 1a armies is the ease of movement. Movement in bw is much more subtle and difficult to organize and execute. Position (like high ground) meant much more, all races had various tools which favored defense over offense (reavers/storm in pvz, tanks/mines, scourge/swarm/lurker vs vessels, better static defense, etc). Furthermore, the smooth a.i in sc2 means that it's really easy to attack bases without bothering to micro and do insane damage. Plus there are a number of tools which effectively fight defensive setups (banelings, infested terrans, forcefields, immortals, colossus, marines, marauders) These reasons are exactly why backstabs so good in sc2 compared to bw and why you get many, many more base trades. Ironically, base trades and backstabs happen the most in the matchups most like BW in terms of skill, defense, and positioning: tvz and tvt.
How does this lend itself to big 1a armies? Because if you are devoting say 15-20 supply to a distraction or secondary maneuver, that means your main army will have that much less supply. Therefore it's much easier for you to just get run over by a-move, and that will lose you the game outright in most cases because it's so hard to comeback. You can overcome this advantage to some degree as defense isn't entirely meaningless, particularly in tvz and tvt, but an extra 20ish supply is a lot more meaningful in most cases than a good position. In bw, position is much more important than army size, and you'd routinely see large armies improperly wielded be defeated or warded off by well employed tactics or setups. Someone like Flash couldn't make a fraction of the comebacks he did in bw playing sc2 because it's just too easy to bully your opponent around once you have a lead and you don't have much leverage to 'outplay' someone when behind. Furthermore there are a number of mechanics in place which very effectively dissuade spread out forces in favor of gathering one big army: Terran drops in tvp are absolutely terrifying, but these are more than "balanced" out by feedback, warpins, and blink. Trying to harass past a certain point is often just going to lead to wasted units, which could in turn lower your main army strength for a critical moment and make you vulnerable to getting a moved to death. In TvT the combination of vikings, sensor towers, great mobility of marines and hellions, and powerful turrets has made it very difficult in general to effectively harass behind a certain point.
No this problem isn't going to be fixed with time. It has nothing to do with how young the game is, only a little bit with how bad players are, and everything with how the game is designed. Until that is addressed, the only way things can change is by drastically altering maps to promote more defense and large-scale combat which can help but only to a small degree. Blizzard designed the game to favor offense and ease of use: these are the results of such decisions.
Wow pure logic! Thumb up!
Aside from making spec. featured maps, how can we change the fundamental game mechanics to make it more viable to gain advantage other than the big battle? Do you have some advice on this? E.g., making turrets less powerful. However, won't this contradict with the defender advantage aspect? It's probably too hard for me to think of a solution
On November 23 2011 14:33 raf3776 wrote: Im sure i could find examples of a random early Sc1 game that doesnt have that much aggression compared to a random game in sc2
On November 23 2011 13:12 Nizzy wrote: 1. Bigger maps, bigger maps, bigger maps, bigger maps. Stuff like twice the size of metalopolis. A map like Tal darim alter should be one of the smallest maps out there. This way 'ball armies' will simply fail, because you can only hit one part of their base, while if they hit you at multiple locations at once you'll probably lose. Because of big maps you would bring back the seige/perimeter lines. You would have zergs placing burrow banelings in areas to block off paths/swarm hosts for this as well. Warp gate for Protoss would be great here for them to warp into any base to protect it. The game would be so much better.
2. Take away the mass multi section of units. You don't have to limit it to 12 like in BW, however everything is in one big ball/ 1-3 control groups only. Maybe cap it at like 24-32 units or something. Units/armies would be WAY harder to control if you had to use like 6 hotkeys for a 200/200 army. It would put more skill back into the game. Way more IMO. Being able to select all of your units in 1 control group is so noob-ish. Even bad players might even agree to that.
3. Like TT1 kind of said in his post. The less casting units the better. Take away that stupid "get over here" thing from the viper. Less spells actually = more action. Having just 2-3 total spells per race actually makes them more exciting. TT1 also said each race having few spells to support the army, even though they're strong. They won't be as strong with armies separated around the map instead of a big ball.
Dumb Dustin Browder fails to realize. Sorry I'm calling him dumb, it's just I feel a sense of ignorance with his logic of 'this is the game I made, not the game you want' Dustin, we don't want these changes because it will be like BW. We want these changes because it will make the game a better RTS. It's already not like BW. The units are so much more fast paced IMO.
He said he's looking at ways to split those balls up. Start with those basic ones.
I am pretty sure 95% of the ball thing is due to the AI, not unit selection. Players didn't split up units in BW because of unit selection, they split them up because otherwise they would run in a straight line to their death regardless of whats happening.
On November 23 2011 14:33 raf3776 wrote: Im sure i could find examples of a random early Sc1 game that doesnt have that much aggression compared to a random game in sc2
Please do.
BGH 2v2v2v2 games are the most passive thing in history and that is SC BW.
It was so passive people made a nuke hack because they could get like 12 nukes and not even be attacked.
I remember watching everyone have their minerals nuked. My favorite thing about SC BW was being an asshole with hacks. Nothing more fun really.
Map hacking, selection hacking, drop spamming. Those days were a lot of fun. I remember when someone said they weren't a hacker but I was hacking too and I moved my dragoons to counter their overlords and saw them moving out of vision to avoid with my own hack. It was pretty hilarious.
One of my AKA's was auto banned for being a known game dropper. Selection hacking max corsair armies and going after everyone's overlords was fun too.
Saying you are going to be an observer and doing a slayers boxer style nuke on peoples tech like I did to Bongmicro.
Hacking in Team Micro Arena games.
Hacking in 1v1 and going for a 4 pool with multiple hatcheries vs unsuspecting victims. Once on Asia vs a Korean and I had no idea what he was saying as I rolled over his unfinished barracks with 6 zerglings.
My #1 favorite thing of all time was the nuke hack though. That must have been a lot of fun. I could imagine destroying someones entire base about 40 minutes into the match and watch them get pissed and leave while I can't stop laughing and then do something stupid like ally vision everyone and leave. haha
Or scv rushing at 11 o clock vs 12 o clock and winning with stack.
Or going into Crash RPG and locking down peoples mech heroes and leaving after I ruin the game.
BSing in Strip Sakura.
Backstabbing allies by sending your entire army to their base and claiming protection. Although I only got a few chances ever.
Trick maps where you freeze peoples Starcraft or have a mini map picture of a dude with a huge Pnis or his B's hanging out or both. I remember making fake python maps and faking other maps with OSmap. I would unprotect them and get the exact name for the map out of the file so no one could tell and then I would host the game and LOL as people go "WTF" and leave.
I was one immature person at the time. I actually had 0 respect for BGH players and was always being a dickhead every game. I still find it funny. I remember laughing so hard I actually had to put my head down and finish before I could do anything.
On November 23 2011 13:12 Nizzy wrote: 1. Bigger maps, bigger maps, bigger maps, bigger maps. Stuff like twice the size of metalopolis. A map like Tal darim alter should be one of the smallest maps out there. This way 'ball armies' will simply fail, because you can only hit one part of their base, while if they hit you at multiple locations at once you'll probably lose. Because of big maps you would bring back the seige/perimeter lines. You would have zergs placing burrow banelings in areas to block off paths/swarm hosts for this as well. Warp gate for Protoss would be great here for them to warp into any base to protect it. The game would be so much better.
2. Take away the mass multi section of units. You don't have to limit it to 12 like in BW, however everything is in one big ball/ 1-3 control groups only. Maybe cap it at like 24-32 units or something. Units/armies would be WAY harder to control if you had to use like 6 hotkeys for a 200/200 army. It would put more skill back into the game. Way more IMO. Being able to select all of your units in 1 control group is so noob-ish. Even bad players might even agree to that.
3. Like TT1 kind of said in his post. The less casting units the better. Take away that stupid "get over here" thing from the viper. Less spells actually = more action. Having just 2-3 total spells per race actually makes them more exciting. TT1 also said each race having few spells to support the army, even though they're strong. They won't be as strong with armies separated around the map instead of a big ball.
Dumb Dustin Browder fails to realize. Sorry I'm calling him dumb, it's just I feel a sense of ignorance with his logic of 'this is the game I made, not the game you want' Dustin, we don't want these changes because it will be like BW. We want these changes because it will make the game a better RTS. It's already not like BW. The units are so much more fast paced IMO.
He said he's looking at ways to split those balls up. Start with those basic ones.
I largely agree with 1 & 3. Bigger Maps, and LESS SPELLS. The new "Get OVER HERE" ability is completely out of whack and does NOT belong in fine RTS like SC2. Why don't they just fix what they already have instead of introduce new GIMMICKY spells that they borrowed from WoW. They're messing with the micro-aspect of the game and although I admit it's a very cool ability, but it's only that cool, doesn't mean it belongs in SC2.
Dustin Browder is definitely a tool in that he doesn't understand people don't want BW, just want certain aspects of it that will improve the play and make it more exciting from a viewer standpoint.
How much do people already whine about things like forcefield and fungal takign away micro opportunities, now he wants to add "GET OVER HERE" to the list, where is the sense in that?
I'll start off by saying I really, really like this post.
I'm hoping some of these design flaws are addressed in the final expansion because its obvious nothing fundamental is changing with Hots, they are just changing up the units trying for micro based battles and more harrassment/unit choice opportunities (which is a good thing and I like where they're going)
Just because this game is not BW does not mean that the new design is really all that acceptable. Yes SC2 is a great game and as a sequel to the best game ever made it holds its own. But as said already the changes to Unit Health/Damage/Supply of Units/Workers Needed for good economy/Hard counters(especially the Tempest, wtf is that??) has shifted the game to be these 200vs200 (60-80vs60-80unit count) army battles that decide the outcome of the game. Worker scouting is ended in 4 minutes and offer no interesting early game micro opportunities. Overall the game is very stale in its possibilities, and all of these fundamental changes have caused a volatile balance between the races where even a minor change to the (lets say bunker/barracks build time) causes an eruption in the balance of all TvX matches.
I know I'm rambling but I liked this post so much that I had to put my 2 cents in, in the short time I had to write this. I love SC2, but I miss the old epicness of a BW game at ANY level.
On November 23 2011 15:28 Larsa23 wrote: Unless you are a D+ at best player who doesn't have reavers and storm everywhere. What about when they come to your expo with 50 ultralisks because they killed your main army with nothing but hydralisks.
If we're considering low skilled players, then a-moving and overrunning your opponent is possible in every matchup. If a player is incapable of properly utilizing the tools available to his race, then that's just an aspect of his game he needs to improve. It's not a flaw of the game itself.
Mass hydras can only work in the early midgame portion and mass ultras are only possible in late, late game. You said they can just overrun your base once they've killed your army. Where exactly is the zerg gonna pull 50 ultras from? And even with mass ultras, it's generally not a good idea to a-move into a protoss base defended by mass cannons + 2/3 reavers.
Supply in workers ins't the problem at all, it's a product of the improved pathing of SC2 making deathballs so effective. If anything we need to take supply out of them not add it.
While I am (was?) a give SC2 time defender, there are some complaints in this thread that will never be fixed no matter how many years we wait.
The number of workers tied up in mining (particularly gas) will not change and the smaller army size due to high unit supply (all the way up to 6 and no 1 supply unit for Zergs) will never change given time.
Unit clumping will also not change, though perhaps people will get better at spreading them apart. But it would be nice if Blizzard increased the spacing between units without bugging it out like the dragoon. I don't know why we can't have one and not the other.
But I wonder if we ever will see deathballs disappear. On one hand, spells punish packed units. On the otherhand, unit clumping encourages deathballs because it is the most efficient method of gaining a superiority in firepower. It's the criticial mass of focus firing/ one shotting units. Something like stalker-collosi, you might spread out temporarily to avoid a spell, but quickly the best use of firepower is to gather them all together, collosi on top and a-move in.
Browder talks about not going backwards, but I don't know if clumped unit movement is necessarily forward or better. Smooth movement, sure. Non-buggy, yes. But is clumped vs spread out better? Could we not at least have magic box selection for the ground like in bw?
I do agree that the cost of harassment just seems to kill the strength of the main army and I would certainly love to unit selection limit. Perhaps not as draconian as BW, but perhaps with a unit selection, proper muta micro could be introduced- that certainly creates far more aggression.
It's funny in Ver's post that he talks about the solution to passive play is adding in units that are more defensive (lurker, reaver, (and I would argue a more powerful high templar). But I think it's probably true. Stronger defensive units allow you to leave your bases guarded by a few units, while you poke around or harass with another group.
Without strong defensive units and better defense features like BW defensive cliffs, players find it difficult to move out without exposing their entire base. But they can't split up their army so well or the different parts will get rolled, so you have the dancing deathball. Which admittedly you sometimes got the equivalent in BW, Destination PvT or PvP as one side tried to gain an advantage without funnelling their troops through the bridges. The difference is the armies ranged across the entire map. Actually thinking about cliffs and defenders advantage, how much damage does cliff walkers do to the notion of defensive play. As cool as it seems, I wonder how SC2 would've developed without cliff walkers.
I've also been wondering about some of the macro mechanics and whether they actually promote interesting play- warp-gates, mules, larvae injects all seem to create so many game play problems that I wonder if they are worth having in. Protoss units and zerg units get nerfed to hell because of their mechanics for sure (poor zerglings.) Stockpiled larvae, insta reinforcing the front, and flooding gold mineral with mules all seem very awkward to deal with and cause detriment elsewhere. Warpgates screws up defenders advantage for certain.
My musings have rambled beyond what I intended to post. However, the main thing is be careful about dismissing everything with the "give it time." That might be true for some things, some things it might be not be true just based on good predictions. However, some things we are stuck with and will never change (high worker use and high supply cutting down on army numbers as well as unit pathing.)
On November 23 2011 15:28 Larsa23 wrote: Unless you are a D+ at best player who doesn't have reavers and storm everywhere. What about when they come to your expo with 50 ultralisks because they killed your main army with nothing but hydralisks.
If we're considering low skilled players, then a-moving and overrunning your opponent is possible in every matchup. If a player is incapable of properly utilizing the tools available to his race, then that's just an aspect of his game he needs to improve. It's not a flaw of the game itself.
Mass hydras can only work in the early midgame portion and mass ultras are only possible in late, late game. You said they can just overrun your base once they've killed your army. Where exactly is the zerg gonna pull 50 ultras from? And even with mass ultras, it's generally not a good idea to a-move into a protoss base defended by mass cannons + 2/3 reavers.
By outmicroing the shit out of me with mass hydra that's how.
They basically figure out they can beat me with hydra and ling so they reserve their ultralisks while pumping more lings and then they overrun me when my army size is low and my main choke is vulnerable to an ultralisk ling attack.
So instead I like to dance around a lot in the middle of the map and try to get as much economy as I can.
On November 23 2011 13:35 Ver wrote: sc2 is not remotely like chess.
The difference you noted between bw and sc2 is a combination of simplicity and the superiority of offense over defense. The reason you see so much dancing of armies jockeying for a tiny increase in position in sc2 is because there's so few ways to gain an advantage. Many sc2 games literally come down to the positioning before a fight because nothing else matters remotely as much as winning a battle. In bw engaging correctly was just one of many, many factors in determining victory. Certain players like Jaedong were known for their consistent ability to engage right, while others like iloveoov were particularly bad at it but could win through a variety of other means. In sc2 if you can't engage very well you will never be among the best. When you remove all the nuances of bw that determined skill, you are left with a select very few factors, most notably engaging, but also blind build order luck, that massively determine the outcomes of games because there's so little else to influence the outcome.
The other reason for favoring big battles and massive 1a armies is the ease of movement. Movement in bw is much more subtle and difficult to organize and execute. Position (like high ground) meant much more, all races had various tools which favored defense over offense (reavers/storm in pvz, tanks/mines, scourge/swarm/lurker vs vessels, better static defense, etc). Furthermore, the smooth a.i in sc2 means that it's really easy to attack bases without bothering to micro and do insane damage. Plus there are a number of tools which effectively fight defensive setups (banelings, infested terrans, forcefields, immortals, colossus, marines, marauders) These reasons are exactly why backstabs so good in sc2 compared to bw and why you get many, many more base trades. Ironically, base trades and backstabs happen the most in the matchups most like BW in terms of skill, defense, and positioning: tvz and tvt.
How does this lend itself to big 1a armies? Because if you are devoting say 15-20 supply to a distraction or secondary maneuver, that means your main army will have that much less supply. Therefore it's much easier for you to just get run over by a-move, and that will lose you the game outright in most cases because it's so hard to comeback. You can overcome this advantage to some degree as defense isn't entirely meaningless, particularly in tvz and tvt, but an extra 20ish supply is a lot more meaningful in most cases than a good position. In bw, position is much more important than army size, and you'd routinely see large armies improperly wielded be defeated or warded off by well employed tactics or setups. Someone like Flash couldn't make a fraction of the comebacks he did in bw playing sc2 because it's just too easy to bully your opponent around once you have a lead and you don't have much leverage to 'outplay' someone when behind. Furthermore there are a number of mechanics in place which very effectively dissuade spread out forces in favor of gathering one big army: Terran drops in tvp are absolutely terrifying, but these are more than "balanced" out by feedback, warpins, and blink. Trying to harass past a certain point is often just going to lead to wasted units, which could in turn lower your main army strength for a critical moment and make you vulnerable to getting a moved to death. In TvT the combination of vikings, sensor towers, great mobility of marines and hellions, and powerful turrets has made it very difficult in general to effectively harass behind a certain point.
No this problem isn't going to be fixed with time. It has nothing to do with how young the game is, only a little bit with how bad players are, and everything with how the game is designed. Until that is addressed, the only way things can change is by drastically altering maps to promote more defense and large-scale combat which can help but only to a small degree. Blizzard designed the game to favor offense and ease of use: these are the results of such decisions.
I've also noticed the dancing of armies and jockeying for position in SC2. I also agree that this "decisive clash" is vital in SC2. However, there is still definitely a defenders advantage and my reasoning why players don't devote supply to a secondary maneuver is more their inability to multi-task. Because of this, the risk/reward is to jockey for position to win this decisive battle.
However, I do suggest to increase the supply from 200/200 to maybe 300/300 in 1v1 to help alleviate this army jockeying.
They could just make it easier to kill armies. In SC BW armies die in a few seconds. I played a few PVZ where I was doing really good but the second they attacked my army and I wasn't paying attention half my units were dead before I could storm. lol
On November 23 2011 14:49 Larsa23 wrote: In BW late game is passive too.
I lost a couple games just by being the one who attacked. Mainly PvZ and I beat someone for doing the same to me.
It sounds exactly the same to me but looks easier.
I have to just o_O at this. With PvZ you have to attack all the time, tonnes of zealot pressure, harass with corsairs, drop DT's, storm drops, reaver drops, etc, or else you will just lose.
Yeah but that's just small harrassment.
No one actually sends an entire army without risking a counter attack. Also TvT has always been boring from what I remember and ZvT is more mobile and back and forth.
PvZ and PvT are about small harrassments and waiting for your opponent to fuck up a big attack.
I didn't say it's passive I just said it can be late game and if you have a huge army vs a huge army or in TvT
Because it's the nature of TvT , Siege tanks with large attack range and the ability to deal heavy damage to units, stops people from playing full frontal attack , hence the need for dropship play, wraith harassment, map control , dividing the map into two .
I agree and that's why I don't think his examples were any different than BW because in PvZ if I lose my army I get overran in like a few minutes or less. I remember losing a lot of my games that way so I was always more passive about using my army. There's a ton of pro gamer videos for that too.
And that is also how PvT works and so I don't understand what he means. Don't really care either. Below is an extremely passive PvZ and what I'm talking about.
In the case of PvZ, that's just flat out false. Even if a zerg destroys most of the protoss army, it's nearly impossible to take out a protoss expo defended by cannons/reavers/storms. The zerg's best option in that scenario is to just get complete map control, expand, deny further expos for the protoss and just try to starve the opponent. Trying to bruteforce a protoss (even when you're ahead) is the perfect way to hand the game to your opponent
Unless you are a D+ at best player who doesn't have reavers and storm everywhere. What about when they come to your expo with 50 ultralisks because they killed your main army with nothing but hydralisks.
There is no freaking way you are D+ I'm sorry. Try playing Zerg and see how many times Protoss can just a-move his army and win at any point in the game.
On November 23 2011 15:28 Larsa23 wrote: Unless you are a D+ at best player who doesn't have reavers and storm everywhere. What about when they come to your expo with 50 ultralisks because they killed your main army with nothing but hydralisks.
If we're considering low skilled players, then a-moving and overrunning your opponent is possible in every matchup. If a player is incapable of properly utilizing the tools available to his race, then that's just an aspect of his game he needs to improve. It's not a flaw of the game itself.
Mass hydras can only work in the early midgame portion and mass ultras are only possible in late, late game. You said they can just overrun your base once they've killed your army. Where exactly is the zerg gonna pull 50 ultras from? And even with mass ultras, it's generally not a good idea to a-move into a protoss base defended by mass cannons + 2/3 reavers.
By outmicroing the shit out of me with mass hydra that's how.
They basically figure out they can beat me with hydra and ling so they reserve their ultralisks while pumping more lings and then they overrun me when my army size is low and my main choke is vulnerable to an ultralisk ling attack.
So instead I like to dance around a lot in the middle of the map and try to get as much economy as I can.
That is a style that works and some protoss players do that. But just because an aggressive style doesn't work for you, doesn't mean it that is the entire metagame of PvZ.
Aggressive PvZ involves attacking from the time your first zealot is made, and constantly keeping drone count down extremely low by attacking and harassing all the time. If he out microes you with hydras then you need to outmicro him with either speedlots or reavers. If you just let Zerg do what he wants because you just sit back and macro then you are stuck having to do your style of play.
On November 23 2011 15:57 Falling wrote: While I am (was?) a give SC2 time defender, there are some complaints in this thread that will never be fixed no matter how many years we wait.
The number of workers tied up in mining (particularly gas) will not change and the smaller army size due to high unit supply (all the way up to 6 and no 1 supply unit for Zergs) will never change given time.
Unit clumping will also not change, though perhaps people will get better at spreading them apart. But it would be nice if Blizzard increased the spacing between units without bugging it out like the dragoon. I don't know why we can't have one and not the other.
But I wonder if we ever will see deathballs disappear. On one hand, spells punish packed units. On the otherhand, unit clumping encourages deathballs because it is the most efficient method of gaining a superiority in firepower. It's the criticial mass of focus firing/ one shotting units. Something like stalker-collosi, you might spread out temporarily to avoid a spell, but quickly the best use of firepower is to gather them all together, collosi on top and a-move in.
Browder talks about not going backwards, but I don't know if clumped unit movement is necessarily forward or better. Smooth movement, sure. Non-buggy, yes. But is clumped vs spread out better? Could we not at least have magic box selection for the ground like in bw?
I do agree that the cost of harassment just seems to kill the strength of the main army and I would certainly love to unit selection limit. Perhaps not as draconian as BW, but perhaps with a unit selection, proper muta micro could be introduced- that certainly creates far more aggression.
It's funny in Ver's post that he talks about the solution to passive play is adding in units that are more defensive (lurker, reaver, (and I would argue a more powerful high templar). But I think it's probably true. Stronger defensive units allow you to leave your bases guarded by a few units, while you poke around or harass with another group.
Without strong defensive units and better defense features like BW defensive cliffs, players find it difficult to move out without exposing their entire base. But they can't split up their army so well or the different parts will get rolled, so you have the dancing deathball. Which admittedly you sometimes got the equivalent in BW, Destination PvT or PvP as one side tried to gain an advantage without funnelling their troops through the bridges. The difference is the armies ranged across the entire map. Actually thinking about cliffs and defenders advantage, how much damage does cliff walkers do to the notion of defensive play. As cool as it seems, I wonder how SC2 would've developed without cliff walkers.
I've also been wondering about some of the macro mechanics and whether they actually promote interesting play- warp-gates, mules, larvae injects all seem to create so many game play problems that I wonder if they are worth having in. Protoss units and zerg units get nerfed to hell because of their mechanics for sure (poor zerglings.) Stockpiled larvae, insta reinforcing the front, and flooding gold mineral with mules all seem very awkward to deal with and cause detriment elsewhere. Warpgates screws up defenders advantage for certain.
My musings have rambled beyond what I intended to post. However, the main thing is be careful about dismissing everything with the "give it time." That might be true for some things, some things it might be not be true just based on good predictions. However, some things we are stuck with and will never change (high worker use and high supply cutting down on army numbers as well as unit pathing.)
I feel the same way as i wrote before on warpgates...
To be honest I think WarpGates fucked SC2 up, there was an article about something like this explaining it. Remove warpgate, buff Gateway units to compensate, PROBLEM SOLVED. That mechanic just causes too many problems that they have to balance. Try playing BGH-customs in SC2, warpgate really screws up how things felt in BW.
A lot of protoss complain about how WarpGate removes defenders advantage for protoss, and it's true because warpgate at home provides very little benefit, and Blizz had to nerf gateway units slightly to compensate for Protoss being able to warp in all over the map, putting a lot of pressure on an enemy with reinforcements, to keep it fair Gateways units are in general weaker cost for cost. Wonder if anyone agrees?
I've opened a thread once explaining why I think WarpGates destroyed SC2, but mods deleted it. They simply RUINED the whole Protoss race. When you add ChronoBoost to the mix, you see how fucked up the Protoss race is: gateway units? nerfed. gateway time? nerfed. pylon range(!!!!)? nerfed. blink? nerfed. All the nerfs Protoss received were motivated by the horrible warp mechanic. Charge takes forever to research, as well as Protoss upgrades. When you look at the ridiculous amount of time needed for building a Carrier, you gotta hate Chrono Boost. When you look at how STUPID AND FUCKING WEAK Immortals and Stalkers are, you gotta hate Warp AND Chrono Boost. WHY THE HELL take away the Dragoon? Holy Tassadar, man...
remove the damn xelnaga towers, it will enrich army movements and uncertainty, so you will have to move your armies non-stop or you may get into trap, its to easy to track movements with xelnaga tower, also players are afraid to move their army into tower radius also you cant really move your drops throughout the map because of it... i dont like the idea of xel naga towers to be on EVERY competition map. Bring us variety, in BW there were mineral walls, temple(rocks) walls that require DIFFERENT strategies and different timings.
I dont like that SC2 is all about being omniscient, a little bit of uncertainty would enrich the play, and possible new strategy/tactics.
Control groups got bigger and unit density got higher, resulting in 'deathball vs. deathball' being the most standard type of SC2 game, even at the pro level. Along with improved pathing that allows units to pack way more tightly than they did in BW, we have units like colossi and medivacs which greatly add to army power without taking up space.
The end result of this is that any time you divide your army on the map, there's a huge risk that your opponent will simply ball up every combat unit he has and crush his way through your base with incredible efficiency. This was possible in BW, but not as easy, and having smaller control groups encouraged squad-based gameplay over the 'deathball.'
I imagine that if the 12-unit limit was enforced in SC2, the game would overall become a lot more active. Just my 2¢.
On November 23 2011 13:35 Ver wrote: sc2 is not remotely like chess.
The difference you noted between bw and sc2 is a combination of simplicity and the superiority of offense over defense. The reason you see so much dancing of armies jockeying for a tiny increase in position in sc2 is because there's so few ways to gain an advantage. Many sc2 games literally come down to the positioning before a fight because nothing else matters remotely as much as winning a battle. In bw engaging correctly was just one of many, many factors in determining victory. Certain players like Jaedong were known for their consistent ability to engage right, while others like iloveoov were particularly bad at it but could win through a variety of other means. In sc2 if you can't engage very well you will never be among the best. When you remove all the nuances of bw that determined skill, you are left with a select very few factors, most notably engaging, but also blind build order luck, that massively determine the outcomes of games because there's so little else to influence the outcome.
The other reason for favoring big battles and massive 1a armies is the ease of movement. Movement in bw is much more subtle and difficult to organize and execute. Position (like high ground) meant much more, all races had various tools which favored defense over offense (reavers/storm in pvz, tanks/mines, scourge/swarm/lurker vs vessels, better static defense, etc). Furthermore, the smooth a.i in sc2 means that it's really easy to attack bases without bothering to micro and do insane damage. Plus there are a number of tools which effectively fight defensive setups (banelings, infested terrans, forcefields, immortals, colossus, marines, marauders) These reasons are exactly why backstabs so good in sc2 compared to bw and why you get many, many more base trades. Ironically, base trades and backstabs happen the most in the matchups most like BW in terms of skill, defense, and positioning: tvz and tvt.
How does this lend itself to big 1a armies? Because if you are devoting say 15-20 supply to a distraction or secondary maneuver, that means your main army will have that much less supply. Therefore it's much easier for you to just get run over by a-move, and that will lose you the game outright in most cases because it's so hard to comeback. You can overcome this advantage to some degree as defense isn't entirely meaningless, particularly in tvz and tvt, but an extra 20ish supply is a lot more meaningful in most cases than a good position. In bw, position is much more important than army size, and you'd routinely see large armies improperly wielded be defeated or warded off by well employed tactics or setups. Someone like Flash couldn't make a fraction of the comebacks he did in bw playing sc2 because it's just too easy to bully your opponent around once you have a lead and you don't have much leverage to 'outplay' someone when behind. Furthermore there are a number of mechanics in place which very effectively dissuade spread out forces in favor of gathering one big army: Terran drops in tvp are absolutely terrifying, but these are more than "balanced" out by feedback, warpins, and blink. Trying to harass past a certain point is often just going to lead to wasted units, which could in turn lower your main army strength for a critical moment and make you vulnerable to getting a moved to death. In TvT the combination of vikings, sensor towers, great mobility of marines and hellions, and powerful turrets has made it very difficult in general to effectively harass behind a certain point.
No this problem isn't going to be fixed with time. It has nothing to do with how young the game is, only a little bit with how bad players are, and everything with how the game is designed. Until that is addressed, the only way things can change is by drastically altering maps to promote more defense and large-scale combat which can help but only to a small degree. Blizzard designed the game to favor offense and ease of use: these are the results of such decisions.
I've also noticed the dancing of armies and jockeying for position in SC2. I also agree that this "decisive clash" is vital in SC2. However, there is still definitely a defenders advantage and my reasoning why players don't devote supply to a secondary maneuver is more their inability to multi-task. Because of this, the risk/reward is to jockey for position to win this decisive battle.
However, I do suggest to increase the supply from 200/200 to maybe 300/300 in 1v1 to help alleviate this army jockeying.
They could just make it easier to kill armies. In SC BW armies die in a few seconds. I played a few PVZ where I was doing really good but the second they attacked my army and I wasn't paying attention half my units were dead before I could storm. lol
On November 23 2011 15:26 DarkMatter_ wrote:
On November 23 2011 15:03 Larsa23 wrote:
On November 23 2011 15:02 Sawamura wrote:
On November 23 2011 14:59 Larsa23 wrote:
On November 23 2011 14:58 sluggaslamoo wrote:
On November 23 2011 14:54 Larsa23 wrote:
On November 23 2011 14:50 sluggaslamoo wrote:
On November 23 2011 14:49 Larsa23 wrote: In BW late game is passive too.
I lost a couple games just by being the one who attacked. Mainly PvZ and I beat someone for doing the same to me.
It sounds exactly the same to me but looks easier.
I have to just o_O at this. With PvZ you have to attack all the time, tonnes of zealot pressure, harass with corsairs, drop DT's, storm drops, reaver drops, etc, or else you will just lose.
Yeah but that's just small harrassment.
No one actually sends an entire army without risking a counter attack. Also TvT has always been boring from what I remember and ZvT is more mobile and back and forth.
PvZ and PvT are about small harrassments and waiting for your opponent to fuck up a big attack.
I didn't say it's passive I just said it can be late game and if you have a huge army vs a huge army or in TvT
Because it's the nature of TvT , Siege tanks with large attack range and the ability to deal heavy damage to units, stops people from playing full frontal attack , hence the need for dropship play, wraith harassment, map control , dividing the map into two .
I agree and that's why I don't think his examples were any different than BW because in PvZ if I lose my army I get overran in like a few minutes or less. I remember losing a lot of my games that way so I was always more passive about using my army. There's a ton of pro gamer videos for that too.
And that is also how PvT works and so I don't understand what he means. Don't really care either. Below is an extremely passive PvZ and what I'm talking about.
In the case of PvZ, that's just flat out false. Even if a zerg destroys most of the protoss army, it's nearly impossible to take out a protoss expo defended by cannons/reavers/storms. The zerg's best option in that scenario is to just get complete map control, expand, deny further expos for the protoss and just try to starve the opponent. Trying to bruteforce a protoss (even when you're ahead) is the perfect way to hand the game to your opponent
Unless you are a D+ at best player who doesn't have reavers and storm everywhere. What about when they come to your expo with 50 ultralisks because they killed your main army with nothing but hydralisks.
There is no freaking way you are D+ I'm sorry. Try playing Zerg and see how many times Protoss can just a-move his army and win at any point in the game.
On November 23 2011 15:28 Larsa23 wrote: Unless you are a D+ at best player who doesn't have reavers and storm everywhere. What about when they come to your expo with 50 ultralisks because they killed your main army with nothing but hydralisks.
If we're considering low skilled players, then a-moving and overrunning your opponent is possible in every matchup. If a player is incapable of properly utilizing the tools available to his race, then that's just an aspect of his game he needs to improve. It's not a flaw of the game itself.
Mass hydras can only work in the early midgame portion and mass ultras are only possible in late, late game. You said they can just overrun your base once they've killed your army. Where exactly is the zerg gonna pull 50 ultras from? And even with mass ultras, it's generally not a good idea to a-move into a protoss base defended by mass cannons + 2/3 reavers.
By outmicroing the shit out of me with mass hydra that's how.
They basically figure out they can beat me with hydra and ling so they reserve their ultralisks while pumping more lings and then they overrun me when my army size is low and my main choke is vulnerable to an ultralisk ling attack.
So instead I like to dance around a lot in the middle of the map and try to get as much economy as I can.
That is a style that works and some protoss players do that. But just because an aggressive style doesn't work for you, doesn't mean it that is the entire metagame of PvZ.
Aggressive PvZ involves attacking from the time your first zealot is made, and constantly keeping drone count down extremely low by attacking and harassing all the time. If you just let Zerg do what he wants because you just sit back and macro then you are stuck having to do your style of play.
I was easily D+. When I was probably at my best I was beating D people and D- like they were nothing. I would purposely play sloppy vs the D- at one point. I was D+ it would have taken a bit but it's not like D+ is harder than beating D and D-. Problem solved.
It's not like it takes much except really good efficiency and basic knowledge which I have.
By the way you didn't ask me against who. Most of those losses were on fish server vs koreans who had the entire map by the time I attacked or hackers on USEast. I know exactly when people are hacking? Why? I was a pretty avid one myself just not in 1v1. Vs D- kids I used to just get an army and win. There were pvps where I just a clicked and won. The max I did was drop reavers behind my dragoons.
In ZvP all it takes is a good defense and a flank from behind and the protoss cant do anything. You then dodge the storms and when their army is overwhelmed and cant retreat because you burrowed lurkers behind all my shit and by the time my units get back to base they are mostly gone you just send all your ultralisks that were waiting at 9 o clock when I attacked 11 o clock and all the lings you had hatching at the time and I am dead.
Happened to me a lot.
There were also the times when they just had a much superior game play to mine and when I'd attack they wouldn't even need their entire army to steam roll mine and then just attack.
The fact that armies are harder to kill you'd think would make it easier to just do attacks because in SC1 there are a lot of situations where you can't afford to lose what you have and when that happens you are done. So like in SC2 I thought that it was because you could just have a really strong army and send some men to harrass but I guess the battles take a million years and so it actually matters or something even though I could see ways of sending reinforcements with a pylon.
I just made the mistake of thinking that since they are stronger armies you would have an easier time sacrificing.
Because in SC1 if you're terran and you lose everything you're fucked too and the same for protoss most of the time like in PVT and PVP
I PVZ'd with bongmicro and only lost due to a strategic mistake because he was a lot better and I was being cautious.
I also had a really hard time recovering in PVT when I would make an attack and get raped by terran tank lines and then he would just come over and steam roll me.
It was actually when I was passive with a 12 nexus that I did good enough to just throw away units until they gave in.
I am not that great at micro unless it's all I focus on so that's why I wouldn't try it with zerg. Zerg has a huge advantage if you know how to flank all over the place and macro better.
I think that psi storm is basically useless unless you're really good or defending anyway. I saw most people just lose their templars or kill practically nothing regularly when I played BW.
In PvP once I was behind unless they didn't attack I was also screwed when I would retreat and they would just follow me all the way home and then it was domination. Because they would be macroing just as hard as me except they wouldn't be worried about retreating and having to recover enough forces to match the enemy. Got owned a lot that way too.
I bet if they increased the production rate of units and made them easier to kill sc2 would be better for sacrificing units whenever.
In SC1 people didn't even play Terran because of how easy they were to kill. They would turtle the whole time and I think that if they made everything weaker in SC2 it would be just like that but then it would have to develop a lot over about 10 years.
remove the damn xelnaga towers, it will enrich army movements and uncertainty, so you will have to move your armies non-stop or you may get into trap, its to easy to track movements with xelnaga tower, also players are afraid to move their army into tower radius also you cant really move your drops throughout the map because of it... i dont like the idea of xel naga towers to be on EVERY competition map. Bring us variety, in BW there were mineral walls, temple(rocks) walls that require DIFFERENT strategies and different timings.
I dont like that SC2 is all about being omniscient, a little bit of uncertainty would enrich the play, and possible new strategy/tactics.
EPT
