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Traditional Mech in the LOTV Economy - Page 2

Forum Index > Legacy of the Void
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Teoita
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Italy12248 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-09 10:09:18
April 09 2015 10:02 GMT
#21
The current economy favours cheap, easily massable units like cyclones/ravegers/whatever over stuff that requires more time to build up an army, like mech or basically anything Protoss.

Just like the economy alone is hugely responsible for Protoss struggling, it's also a major nerf to mech. It's not only an issue of mobility, it's just that siege tanks are kind of the definition of a unit that is pretty meh in small numbers but becomes stronger in big battles.

Also, mech for the sake of it is silly, that's basically Protoss in PvT...defend maybe with some harassment here and there, get a big army, push. What's cool and unique about mech is the siege tank being core of the army, and all the positioning dynamics that siege mode brings. I don't think we want "mech" to have insane mobility, flying around the map with a bunch of medivacs looking for opportunities to doom drop 10 sieged tanks in the name of viability.
ModeratorProtoss all-ins are like a wok. You can throw whatever you want in there and it will turn out alright.
Yoshi Kirishima
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States10382 Posts
April 09 2015 11:25 GMT
#22
@OP

Well written post. I am worried about those things as well. I wouldn't mind for Cyclone/Hellion to be a major part of Mech, similar to how Vultures were in BW, but it shouldn't be the main core. (Right now though I don't think they are the main core as you still will want ideally to fight with tanks since cyclones are supply inefficient and don't scale).

Worried about TvT marine tank, maybe if they add a 1-2 second drop/pickup time or something on sieged tanks, it will make it so that rearranging tanks via medviacs in battle is possible, but a risk, but while still saving time in situations where you want to move sieged tanks than unsieging before picking up, then reseiging (6 extra seconds).

Blizz wants there to be more action and interaction throughout the map, that's good. But like you said there should be a choice to go for an immobile style, at least for Terran and somewhat Protoss. If as long as one side going immobile has the stronger army than the other side, then it will be dynamic (like TvP with terran pressuring protoss, or even ZvT with zerg pressuring terran).

I think the problem with immobile styles occurs only if there's a lot of situations/MUs where both styles will just turtle and never fight (HotS Mech vs SH/Viper/Spore/Queen/Etc).

I really hope they get it right, they usually do, and I really want to play some really fun mech. I don't think the chances are good unfortunately that they will change the mining model to something that does effectively what BW did (I love the concept of mech being on 2-3 bases with less income, but being able to fight 4-5 base protoss with higher production for example).
Mid-master streaming MECH ONLY + commentary www.twitch.tv/yoshikirishima +++ "If all-in fails, all-in again."
ejozl
Profile Joined October 2010
Denmark3548 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-09 13:18:59
April 09 2015 13:08 GMT
#23
I think if there's anything I've learned from HotS it's that you shouldn't force certain styles, because they're more fun.
We saw this with overbuffing fun mobile styles like: Medivac, Mutalisk, Widow Mine, Oracle.
While we did end up with a good standard metagame, it's a stale one, because the other styles simply don't have the overbuffed units.
Even though everyone hates PvZ because of Swarm Hosts, it's at least the most dynamic matchup in terms of unit compositions. You can go Roach/Hydra->Viper, Muta/Corruptor, Swarm Host/upg lings, swarm host/roach/hydra, the super late Viper/Spore/Swarm Host, Ultralisk+Fungal+Blinding Cloud, some even add in Broodlords.

So I think as a developer it's just very important to focus on, having even ground units and let the progamers find out how the matchup works and develop cool styles that can distinguish them from other progamers.
Now with that said, I think LotV is heading towards buffing almost everything towards the power level of the Medivac, which I think is great. HotS was the unfinished vision of what Blizzard had in mind and with LotV I think it will be fulfilled.
I would still love to see an energy cost on Medivac Boost, however, as it would remove silly doom drops, and make Medivacs just as prevalent with Mech, as with Bio, in a sense, because you can boost more with the Mech as you don't need to use the energy for Heal. Also I think it's just a cool aspect of Healing that, you need to preserve your Stim more, because it's actually possible to empty Medivacs.

Now as for Mech:
I don't think Mech is losing it's characteristics, rather than they're just scaling everything towards a faster pace. So Mech will still be as slow compared to the mobile compositions as it was before IMO.
I think for how Mech will work out in LotV will be with one part of the army being the mobile one: Cyclone/Hellion and one part the slow one: Tanks+whatever. So the Cyclone+Hellion will sort of work like Blink Stalkers in delaying the expanding of the opponent and doing some light harass, taking map control, but then when the big battle happens it needs to combine with the slower and bigger army.
SC2 Archon needs "Terrible, terrible damage" as one of it's quotes.
avilo
Profile Blog Joined November 2007
United States4100 Posts
April 09 2015 14:47 GMT
#24
The only thing we all need to be careful of is giving feedback to blizzard in regards to the cyclone/tank.

Because mark my words, if you guys and myself give good arguments as to tanks sucking and cyclones being the better option...blizzard in the past has interpreted that as this:

"Oh, let's just nerf the hell out of the cyclone and not do anything else to the tank."

Believe me, if the past is any indicator, blizzard will just leave the tank really, really weak and gut the cyclone till mech really is not viable.

So i think it should be clear that right now as it appears...mech involving tanks is severely nerfed in the beta. Because they are so terrible in low numbers, and obviously action and attacks start happening constantly with low unit numbers like with ravagers/cyclones...it's just a very bad environment for tanks that were previously nerfed a few years ago.

It's near impossible to spread out tanks across 4 bases early on in the game...and a lot of times "early on in the game" now is equal to 4 bases.

The tank would be more suitable at 2 supply in this economy to be honest, and costing 100 gas instead of 125 because then it would be a more tradeable unit and promote tank pushes instead of just turtle mech.

I just hope blizzard doesn't see the cyclone as "mech is viable, let's call it a day."
Sup
Big J
Profile Joined March 2011
Austria16289 Posts
April 09 2015 15:08 GMT
#25
I think the problem with the tank is less that it's not good enough - because it really stomps most ground in the higher amounts - it's rather that it isn't that unique anymore in a game in which every unit has either a big range, or a fast speed (or just some other way to close the distance). And if they don't, they are superhigh defense units like Archons or Immortals or Ultras, which is often even worse for the tank, in particular in lower amounts.

I think that's the main thing that has changed from broodwar. The range of the tank from broodwar and SC2 might be comparable, but to have the same range-advantage over other units an SC2 tank would probably need like 18range instead of 13.
The cost- and supplyefficiency buffs would probably cause massive balance-problems in the high supplies for ZvT and TvT. I mean, we are still talking about 6supply ultras, 2supply roaches/marauders/hydras... I think you'd have to make it really hard then for a meching player to counter airplay, because ground won't ever do it if 20tanks+3base saturation doesn't even put you over 100supply.
Hider
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Denmark9448 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-09 15:39:29
April 09 2015 15:39 GMT
#26
We saw this with overbuffing fun mobile styles like: Medivac, Mutalisk, Widow Mine, Oracle.
While we did end up with a good standard metagame, it's a stale one, because the other styles simply don't have the overbuffed units.


I don't think there is anything wrong with forcing awesome styles. TvZ 4M vs Muta/bling is great. However, other styles should have received buffs/tweaks as well, and that's the real problem here.
royalroadweed
Profile Joined April 2013
United States8301 Posts
April 09 2015 15:58 GMT
#27
On April 10 2015 00:08 Big J wrote:
I think the problem with the tank is less that it's not good enough - because it really stomps most ground in the higher amounts - it's rather that it isn't that unique anymore in a game in which every unit has either a big range, or a fast speed (or just some other way to close the distance). And if they don't, they are superhigh defense units like Archons or Immortals or Ultras, which is often even worse for the tank, in particular in lower amounts.

I think that's the main thing that has changed from broodwar. The range of the tank from broodwar and SC2 might be comparable, but to have the same range-advantage over other units an SC2 tank would probably need like 18range instead of 13.
The cost- and supplyefficiency buffs would probably cause massive balance-problems in the high supplies for ZvT and TvT. I mean, we are still talking about 6supply ultras, 2supply roaches/marauders/hydras... I think you'd have to make it really hard then for a meching player to counter airplay, because ground won't ever do it if 20tanks+3base saturation doesn't even put you over 100supply.

I don't think it needs 18 range. I just think it needs to deal damage. 35+25 is underwhelming in lower numbers.
"Nerfing Toss can just make them stronger"
Teoita
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Italy12248 Posts
April 09 2015 16:07 GMT
#28
Yeah just to be clear, for the millionth time: "true mech" should be something that has the siege tank as a core unit, NOT something where bio isn't the core unit. Raven/viking turtle in the lategame isn't "true mech", and neither is making a few cyclones, thors, hellions or what have you.
ModeratorProtoss all-ins are like a wok. You can throw whatever you want in there and it will turn out alright.
BronzeKnee
Profile Joined March 2011
United States5226 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-09 16:35:34
April 09 2015 16:27 GMT
#29
On April 10 2015 01:07 Teoita wrote:
Yeah just to be clear, for the millionth time: "true mech" should be something that has the siege tank as a core unit, NOT something where bio isn't the core unit. Raven/viking turtle in the lategame isn't "true mech", and neither is making a few cyclones, thors, hellions or what have you.


Well, true mech is positional play based around the Siege Tank because it is a positional unit. Siege Tanks are exponentially stronger when sieged in a certain position on the map than moving freely. That is opposed to mobile play, such as Terran Bio, where positioning is far less important, instead the ability to multitask and find weak points is highlighted.

Blizzard has never understood this.

Which is why the Warhound was in the HOTS beta. The Warhound was the complete opposite of true mech as it didn't encourage positional play. You used it the same way you'd use a Terran bio unit, except that it was so strong that you didn't need to kite. Even when the Tank was a feature of TvZ in WOL, it was only there in support of the Marines. The Marines were the real damage dealer.

Therefore, I think the chances of Mech returning to positional based play is exactly 0%. In order for true mech to work, then the Siege Tank must be the primary damage dealer as it was in BW. Goliaths provided protection from air units, and Vultures added Spider Mines and close support for protection against melee units. Blizzard doesn't seem to want that, they want other factory units doing big damage like the Thor and Widow Mines.

Finally, we need to remember that the size of these new maps makes it very difficult for positional play to succeed. Positional units are increasingly strong the smaller the map is. These new maps are giant which opens up a lot of weak points for multitaskers to abuse.

On April 10 2015 00:39 Hider wrote:
Show nested quote +
We saw this with overbuffing fun mobile styles like: Medivac, Mutalisk, Widow Mine, Oracle.
While we did end up with a good standard metagame, it's a stale one, because the other styles simply don't have the overbuffed units.


I don't think there is anything wrong with forcing awesome styles. TvZ 4M vs Muta/bling is great. However, other styles should have received buffs/tweaks as well, and that's the real problem here.


4M vs Muta/Bling doesn't hold a candle to Muta/Bling versus Marine/Tank/Medivac.

Hider
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Denmark9448 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-09 17:09:07
April 09 2015 16:57 GMT
#30

4M vs Muta/Bling doesn't hold a candle to Muta/Bling versus Marine/Tank/Medivac.


The latter was way more passive since terran had a much harder times ecaping from a lost engagement. In WOL vs zerg bio + tank had to sit in the base for 14 minutes before moving out with a timing attack.

Tanks in BW functioned better vs zerg as terran had natural map control when going bio vs zerg. When tanks are used defensively in the midgame, they are honestly quite boring.
Big J
Profile Joined March 2011
Austria16289 Posts
April 09 2015 17:05 GMT
#31
On April 10 2015 01:27 BronzeKnee wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 10 2015 00:39 Hider wrote:
We saw this with overbuffing fun mobile styles like: Medivac, Mutalisk, Widow Mine, Oracle.
While we did end up with a good standard metagame, it's a stale one, because the other styles simply don't have the overbuffed units.


I don't think there is anything wrong with forcing awesome styles. TvZ 4M vs Muta/bling is great. However, other styles should have received buffs/tweaks as well, and that's the real problem here.


4M vs Muta/Bling doesn't hold a candle to Muta/Bling versus Marine/Tank/Medivac.



I think what people forget with the 2011 MLB vs MM/Tank metagame is that a lot of the excitement of it came from people trying to transition away from those styles and then being tough holds when the infestors, ultras or broodlords barely came out or the high eco muta/ling/bling bust hit before the terran had stabilized from his failed timing or tried to tech to ghosts or semimech.
The difference is really that these days it's really just MLB vs 4M for 25mins or even longer, while back in the days it was 1-2 such engagements and then people would go to different compositions.

It's hardly compareable though, just because of the level of play.
Sapphire.lux
Profile Joined July 2010
Romania2620 Posts
April 09 2015 19:01 GMT
#32
Watching Demuslim play Cyclone mech vs Zerg is like Warhound era all over again. Very ugly.
Head Coach Park: "They should buff tanks!"
Ramiz1989
Profile Joined July 2012
12124 Posts
April 09 2015 19:06 GMT
#33
On April 10 2015 04:01 Sapphire.lux wrote:
Watching Demuslim play Cyclone mech vs Zerg is like Warhound era all over again. Very ugly.

Nah, don't say that, they aren't a-click units, they are m-click units.

But yeah on a more serious note, watching Stephano making Roaches, Hydras, Swarm Hosts and Vipers while Demuslim was making just Hellions and masses of Cyclones(and few Banshees that didn't matter at all...) and was always trading efficiently even with Vipers, is seriously horrifying.

I am pretty positive that they will nerf it soon though.
"I've been to hell and back, and back to hell…and back. This time, I've brought Hell back with me."
HewTheTitan
Profile Joined February 2015
Canada331 Posts
April 09 2015 19:08 GMT
#34
On April 10 2015 04:06 Ramiz1989 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 10 2015 04:01 Sapphire.lux wrote:
Watching Demuslim play Cyclone mech vs Zerg is like Warhound era all over again. Very ugly.

Nah, don't say that, they aren't a-click units, they are m-click units.

But yeah on a more serious note, watching Stephano making Roaches, Hydras, Swarm Hosts and Vipers while Demuslim was making just Hellions and masses of Cyclones(and few Banshees that didn't matter at all...) and was always trading efficiently even with Vipers, is seriously horrifying.

I am pretty positive that they will nerf it soon though.


As Stephano said on stream right after that game, he lost because he turtled on 3 bases going for lurkers, not because of cyclones. Demuslim rushed up to 4 bases.
Big J
Profile Joined March 2011
Austria16289 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-09 19:16:42
April 09 2015 19:16 GMT
#35
On April 10 2015 04:08 HewTheTitan wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 10 2015 04:06 Ramiz1989 wrote:
On April 10 2015 04:01 Sapphire.lux wrote:
Watching Demuslim play Cyclone mech vs Zerg is like Warhound era all over again. Very ugly.

Nah, don't say that, they aren't a-click units, they are m-click units.

But yeah on a more serious note, watching Stephano making Roaches, Hydras, Swarm Hosts and Vipers while Demuslim was making just Hellions and masses of Cyclones(and few Banshees that didn't matter at all...) and was always trading efficiently even with Vipers, is seriously horrifying.

I am pretty positive that they will nerf it soon though.


As Stephano said on stream right after that game, he lost because he turtled on 3 bases going for lurkers, not because of cyclones. Demuslim rushed up to 4 bases.


Well, after the last game he said he has no clue how to beat it. Air units are off the table according to him, Vipers are nice but the vipers have to go home to regenerate while the cyclones are always shooting and zerglings are unplayable against hellbats.
But I wouldn't be too quick on it, I think banelings and infestors could work if they are really going full cyclone/hellbat without tank support? Maybe not since it is still 200HP armored so no bonus from banelings and rather quick so you can split it easily, with the lock on even during shots. But for 150/150/techlab I'm a bit amazed how easily the Terrans get up to those big cyclone amounts so fast while the zerg players I'm watching seem to always be on somewhat equal army size with roach/hydra type of play.
I guess hellbat good unit.
Ramiz1989
Profile Joined July 2012
12124 Posts
April 09 2015 19:26 GMT
#36
On April 10 2015 04:08 HewTheTitan wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 10 2015 04:06 Ramiz1989 wrote:
On April 10 2015 04:01 Sapphire.lux wrote:
Watching Demuslim play Cyclone mech vs Zerg is like Warhound era all over again. Very ugly.

Nah, don't say that, they aren't a-click units, they are m-click units.

But yeah on a more serious note, watching Stephano making Roaches, Hydras, Swarm Hosts and Vipers while Demuslim was making just Hellions and masses of Cyclones(and few Banshees that didn't matter at all...) and was always trading efficiently even with Vipers, is seriously horrifying.

I am pretty positive that they will nerf it soon though.


As Stephano said on stream right after that game, he lost because he turtled on 3 bases going for lurkers, not because of cyclones. Demuslim rushed up to 4 bases.

So, did anything indicate on the stream that he would be able to beat it with better economy? Nope, Demuslim always got the upper hand and was more cost-efficient even though Stephano had Vipers and actually managed to abduct those Cyclones. Better economy just means that Stephano would last longer and that's all.
"I've been to hell and back, and back to hell…and back. This time, I've brought Hell back with me."
andrewlt
Profile Joined August 2009
United States7702 Posts
April 09 2015 19:57 GMT
#37
SC2 siege tank just sucks at pushing offensively. It is good at turtling because of synergy with the raven but that's a terribly unfun unit interaction.

The siege tank is terrible at pushing offensively because there are way too many units that outdps it against buildings. Unlike the BW version, the SC2 version will never win a base trade against units like the marauder and immortal. There are also way too many units that can easily close the gap with the siege tank. It's really bad at pushing against zerg on creep. Blink stalkers easily close the gap against siege tanks. Stimmed bio easily closes the gap against siege tanks.

I think the medivac change is the wrong direction to take. Blizzard is removing the one weakness of the siege tank that opponents should be taking advantage of. The siege tank should be stronger, not more mobile.
knyttym
Profile Blog Joined December 2006
United States5797 Posts
April 09 2015 21:13 GMT
#38
On April 09 2015 17:27 starslayer wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
Now I Love the idea of being able to defend and be aggressive, but like i said in hots it hard/not possible to be aggro and in LOTV ( not in beta so dont know to well) seems you can only be aggro or starve to death.and this seem to be what the community and Blizzard wants. most games I play or watch,i find people hate turtle play be it toss, mech , or BL infestor, and to an extant i do to because it can be boring.



I hate the idea that turtle styles always promote boring gameplay. It is difficult to argue from a Starcraft 2 stand point because the economic system has been fucked up since the very beginning and I have so sparse evidence in sc2 for the potentials of mobile vs immobile styles. I can only refer people to TvT mech vs bio for the potential interactions that can result.

On April 09 2015 18:01 phodacbiet wrote:
Honestly I think we shouldn't try to rush to conclusion and patch things up quickly, even if something appears to be broken at first. Remember what happens in wings and hots? We should just wait to see what the koreans can come up with in GSL before making decisions.


Sorry the wait and see mentality cannot be applied any longer. As I've outlined in my post, Blizzard has already started pushing out traditional mech in favor of this mobile style. I don't believe this should continue.

On April 09 2015 18:44 ETisME wrote:
I think mech being more mobile isn't that bad of a concept.
I think we had been too fixate on the idea that mech must be immobile and turtle hard.

Mech should just be different than bio, being immobile is one way to differentiate the two but it's not the only way.

Afterall even if mech is more mobile, it still offers a unit composition with completely different interaction with zerg or protoss units than bio does.


If it's not that bad of a concept then I see no reason to be forcing it out as Blizzard seems to be doing. It should be addressed and improved upon. I think a change to the economic system makes this possible.
New units may provide enough diversity to keep the game interesting but maintaining strategic options definitely increase diversity. I see no reason to gamble.

On April 09 2015 18:57 Vanadiel wrote:
Honestly, I feel it would be a very big plus if passive/defensive play was no longer possible in Legacy of the Void, mech is -in my opinion- the most boring thing to watch and to play against.


Again this does not have to be the case if the mobile player is given the right tools. These tools can be brought about through the economic system.

On April 09 2015 20:25 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
@OP

Well written post. I am worried about those things as well. I wouldn't mind for Cyclone/Hellion to be a major part of Mech, similar to how Vultures were in BW, but it shouldn't be the main core. (Right now though I don't think they are the main core as you still will want ideally to fight with tanks since cyclones are supply inefficient and don't scale).

Worried about TvT marine tank, maybe if they add a 1-2 second drop/pickup time or something on sieged tanks, it will make it so that rearranging tanks via medviacs in battle is possible, but a risk, but while still saving time in situations where you want to move sieged tanks than unsieging before picking up, then reseiging (6 extra seconds).

Blizz wants there to be more action and interaction throughout the map, that's good. But like you said there should be a choice to go for an immobile style, at least for Terran and somewhat Protoss. If as long as one side going immobile has the stronger army than the other side, then it will be dynamic (like TvP with terran pressuring protoss, or even ZvT with zerg pressuring terran).

I think the problem with immobile styles occurs only if there's a lot of situations/MUs where both styles will just turtle and never fight (HotS Mech vs SH/Viper/Spore/Queen/Etc).

I really hope they get it right, they usually do, and I really want to play some really fun mech. I don't think the chances are good unfortunately that they will change the mining model to something that does effectively what BW did (I love the concept of mech being on 2-3 bases with less income, but being able to fight 4-5 base protoss with higher production for example).


Agreed with the first paragraph. Hider mentioned mech's relationship to static defense and mutalisks a few posts ago. I think a decent relationship can be established using hellion/cyclone as harassment tools and supplements to a tank core. That's however a balance issue and bit further down the line in terms of discussion.

The Mech vs SH was the result of the economy though. Because zerg was incapable of gaining economic leads and using high income trades, they were forced into an ultra cost efficient army to combat mech. I think this can be addressed through the economy. As for whether or not Blizzard is actually willing to adopt a new economic system, this is the last chance to just get everything out there. In 3 months perhaps Blizzard will be too set on the system we have in place and even less receptive. We can already see they've pretty much set their sights on this mobile mech style as I went over in the OP.

On April 09 2015 22:08 ejozl wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
Now as for Mech:
I don't think Mech is losing it's characteristics, rather than they're just scaling everything towards a faster pace. So Mech will still be as slow compared to the mobile compositions as it was before IMO.
I think for how Mech will work out in LotV will be with one part of the army being the mobile one: Cyclone/Hellion and one part the slow one: Tanks+whatever. So the Cyclone+Hellion will sort of work like Blink Stalkers in delaying the expanding of the opponent and doing some light harass, taking map control, but then when the big battle happens it needs to combine with the slower and bigger army.


Having a mobile harass force of cyclone/hellion force combined with a tank core is exactly what I would want. That is not what the LOTV economy promotes. It forces cyclone/hellion into the core role and the tank acts as a secondary unit. This does not maintain the immobilities associates with traditional mech.

On April 09 2015 23:47 avilo wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
The only thing we all need to be careful of is giving feedback to blizzard in regards to the cyclone/tank.

Because mark my words, if you guys and myself give good arguments as to tanks sucking and cyclones being the better option...blizzard in the past has interpreted that as this:

"Oh, let's just nerf the hell out of the cyclone and not do anything else to the tank."

Believe me, if the past is any indicator, blizzard will just leave the tank really, really weak and gut the cyclone till mech really is not viable.

So i think it should be clear that right now as it appears...mech involving tanks is severely nerfed in the beta. Because they are so terrible in low numbers, and obviously action and attacks start happening constantly with low unit numbers like with ravagers/cyclones...it's just a very bad environment for tanks that were previously nerfed a few years ago.

It's near impossible to spread out tanks across 4 bases early on in the game...and a lot of times "early on in the game" now is equal to 4 bases.

The tank would be more suitable at 2 supply in this economy to be honest, and costing 100 gas instead of 125 because then it would be a more tradeable unit and promote tank pushes instead of just turtle mech.

I just hope blizzard doesn't see the cyclone as "mech is viable, let's call it a day."


I think we're jumping the gun a bit again. Before we even address balance of the cyclone and tank we should be establishing more basic ideas. The question I posed was whether or not people even care to preserve the traditional mech style. If we don't even care to keep the style, then balancing the tank as a core unit is pretty much irrelevant.

On April 10 2015 01:07 Teoita wrote:
Yeah just to be clear, for the millionth time: "true mech" should be something that has the siege tank as a core unit, NOT something where bio isn't the core unit. Raven/viking turtle in the lategame isn't "true mech", and neither is making a few cyclones, thors, hellions or what have you.


Yes this was stated in the OP. For example, a Thor based mech style will be slow but is missing key features of a tank composition like weakness in small numbers and strong use of terrain.

On April 10 2015 01:27 BronzeKnee wrote:
Therefore, I think the chances of Mech returning to positional based play is exactly 0%. In order for true mech to work, then the Siege Tank must be the primary damage dealer as it was in BW. Goliaths provided protection from air units, and Vultures added Spider Mines and close support for protection against melee units. Blizzard doesn't seem to want that, they want other factory units doing big damage like the Thor and Widow Mines.

Finally, we need to remember that the size of these new maps makes it very difficult for positional play to succeed. Positional units are increasingly strong the smaller the map is. These new maps are giant which opens up a lot of weak points for multitaskers to abuse.


It may be 0% but we should at least recognize this and discuss if it is worth salvaging. As for the maps, it's completely fine if some maps allow for mech and others don't. We always have bio to work with.
Hider
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Denmark9448 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-09 21:46:31
April 09 2015 21:44 GMT
#39
Agreed with the first paragraph. Hider mentioned mech's relationship to static defense and mutalisks a few posts ago. I think a decent relationship can be established using hellion/cyclone as harassment tools and supplements to a tank core. That's however a balance issue and bit further down the line in terms of discussion.


I think 3 changes could make mech feel a ton more awesome with LOTV economy:

(1) Cyclone nerf/adjustment
(2) New terran AA
(3) Siege tank 2 supply + a late game upgrade.
(Carrier nerf also).

With these changes, ´mech will be pretty mobile and have harass potential in the midgame. This allows them to secure bases. Once on 4+bases, it is assumed that we enter the late game, where Tanks can get a lot better. Suddenly tanks become viable again and we can have a type of gameplay where you can split up tanks all over the map.

I don't see any reason though to attempt to make mech about Siege tanks in the midgame where defending with tanks is pretty easy and most likely just stagnates the game.
knyttym
Profile Blog Joined December 2006
United States5797 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-09 22:54:17
April 09 2015 22:41 GMT
#40
On April 10 2015 06:44 Hider wrote:
Show nested quote +
Agreed with the first paragraph. Hider mentioned mech's relationship to static defense and mutalisks a few posts ago. I think a decent relationship can be established using hellion/cyclone as harassment tools and supplements to a tank core. That's however a balance issue and bit further down the line in terms of discussion.


I think 3 changes could make mech feel a ton more awesome with LOTV economy:

(1) Cyclone nerf/adjustment
(2) New terran AA
(3) Siege tank 2 supply + a late game upgrade.
(Carrier nerf also).

With these changes, ´mech will be pretty mobile and have harass potential in the midgame. This allows them to secure bases. Once on 4+bases, it is assumed that we enter the late game, where Tanks can get a lot better. Suddenly tanks become viable again and we can have a type of gameplay where you can split up tanks all over the map.

I don't see any reason though to attempt to make mech about Siege tanks in the midgame where defending with tanks is pretty easy and most likely just stagnates the game.


That actually might be fine for mech styles. I'm not sure if you watched much brood war but your post reminded me of Flash vs Calm on Fighting Spirit.
Quick Summary: Mass tanks defending bottom left and bottom right. A bio army floats in the middle looking to defend where the zerg tries to attack
+ Show Spoiler [Flash vs Calm VOD] +



edit: The more I think about this, the more I think that the army would just function like a reskinned bio army. I can't really think of any defining feature compared to marine/marauder/tank.
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