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On September 24 2015 11:16 NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2015 06:01 [PkF] Wire wrote:On September 24 2015 05:03 DinoMight wrote:On September 24 2015 03:12 NonY wrote: I'm absolutely certain that players have put more effort into developing aggressive harassment-based builds than they have into developing defensive anti-harassment builds. If you don't like the way games are playing out, then start on the project of mapping out and spreading good build orders so the bad builds that rely on the ignorance of the opponent lose traction.
There are basically four things you need to pay attention to when countering threats: (1) when playing in the dark, do a build that is capable of responding to the threat when you first detect it or without detecting it, (2) figure out when you need to detect it to be able to respond in time, (3) figure out how to get that scouting done and (4) figure out the most efficient way to repel the threat. Simple. But this can take SO much experimentation to nail down a build that deals with everything. And most people aren't even trying yet.
edit: In other words, I think the counter-measures possible in the game will prove to be good enough in the long run and it's not surprising that they aren't winning the arms race early on. This is a very smart post. I like the general attitude, but things like warp prisms or invincible Nydus are going to come back and bite us. I don't see why they would. The defender still has a significant advantage, enough to invest in a little bit of upgrade/research/econ that the attacker can't and still take good trades. Attacker gets ahead by investing more in army and putting his army in good positions. Defender can invest the same amount and have an easier time getting in good positions, but can save money on warp prism or nydus or whatever method is being used for mobility.
The issue isn't that things can't be defended, it's more that the requirements of the defender are much greater than those of the attacker. Looking at a Brood War example and the shuttle and reaver are both large up front investments that you have to carefully micro and move around to do damage. Make a mistake with it and lose either the shuttle or the reaver and the harass is completely shut out. You lose the window if you have to wait for another shuttle and reaver to bring over to do critical damage and from that point on you're playing from behind.
Flipping over to SC2 and your investment suddenly changes. Not only is the tech much easier to get, the investment into the attack doesn't happen until you actually get there. You might get there and see your opponent exceptionally well setup to stop your harass and just not bother warping anything in, or you can go for the throat and keep adding more units to the equation. Your opponent also needs a very specific set of units to defend and you can adjust your warp ins based on what he has defensively. Your opponent needs to scout correctly, adjust his build correctly and control his units extremely well if he wants to hold the pressure without suffering game ending damage. If he slips up at all in any of these area's he's going to end up losing the game. You as the attacker even if you fly your warp prism straight to it's death by mistake at the very start are at absolute worst marginally behind, and that's what the problem is.
At the highest possible level we still see pro players losing to very basic harassment like mine drops, hellion runbys/drops and Warp Prism centric attacks. This happens an absolute ton, and has led to a meta game that is much more in favour of the player who is doing committed aggression. The simple fact is you don't fall too far behind if an aggressive attack fails so there's very little reason to try and be the defender. When dealing with it at every other level the games can become very frustrating to play very quickly and at the end of the day the vast majority of people play Starcraft 2 for fun.
The most fun for me with Starcraft is the learning experience, the feeling of improvement game to game. When I lose to a mine drop because I didn't see it in the 3-4 seconds I get to spot it coming in I'm not learning, I'm just wasting time in a lost game from a situation I already know how to handle. It's one thing to fail to split marines in a bigger battle or skirmish, or to miss my snipes on the High Templar and get my ghosts feedbacked first it's something totally different to watch my mineral line burn to an oracle with no way to minimize the damage it's doing by pulling etc. For every 8 oracles I scout properly and defend well, the other 2 I don't scout end the game. The 8 times I do defend it properly? it's usually still a very even game because of what I have to invest to defend it.
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On September 25 2015 01:20 Naracs_Duc wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2015 00:16 Big J wrote: I just want to note that just because something doesn't hit your front, it can still be a plain timing attack and shouldn't automatically be considered "harassment". There is no misunderstanding. People on this thread are upset that they aren't as good as they imagine themselves to be, so they do the bnet forums thing and whine about how its Blizzard's fault.
Why are you making this assumption?
I am reading some reasonable arguments, some theorycraft, some discussion and only a little bit of whine. But you are just dismissing the thread itself making unfair assumptions and a passive agressive whine.
BigJ: Even if its a timing attack it can be coin flippy, but your point is fair. Timing attacks should be scouted and its fair if the defender must react in a specific way. Blink Stalker timings fit into this category.
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8716 Posts
On September 25 2015 10:26 Filter wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2015 11:16 NonY wrote:On September 24 2015 06:01 [PkF] Wire wrote:On September 24 2015 05:03 DinoMight wrote:On September 24 2015 03:12 NonY wrote: I'm absolutely certain that players have put more effort into developing aggressive harassment-based builds than they have into developing defensive anti-harassment builds. If you don't like the way games are playing out, then start on the project of mapping out and spreading good build orders so the bad builds that rely on the ignorance of the opponent lose traction.
There are basically four things you need to pay attention to when countering threats: (1) when playing in the dark, do a build that is capable of responding to the threat when you first detect it or without detecting it, (2) figure out when you need to detect it to be able to respond in time, (3) figure out how to get that scouting done and (4) figure out the most efficient way to repel the threat. Simple. But this can take SO much experimentation to nail down a build that deals with everything. And most people aren't even trying yet.
edit: In other words, I think the counter-measures possible in the game will prove to be good enough in the long run and it's not surprising that they aren't winning the arms race early on. This is a very smart post. I like the general attitude, but things like warp prisms or invincible Nydus are going to come back and bite us. I don't see why they would. The defender still has a significant advantage, enough to invest in a little bit of upgrade/research/econ that the attacker can't and still take good trades. Attacker gets ahead by investing more in army and putting his army in good positions. Defender can invest the same amount and have an easier time getting in good positions, but can save money on warp prism or nydus or whatever method is being used for mobility. The issue isn't that things can't be defended, it's more that the requirements of the defender are much greater than those of the attacker. Looking at a Brood War example and the shuttle and reaver are both large up front investments that you have to carefully micro and move around to do damage. Make a mistake with it and lose either the shuttle or the reaver and the harass is completely shut out. You lose the window if you have to wait for another shuttle and reaver to bring over to do critical damage and from that point on you're playing from behind. Flipping over to SC2 and your investment suddenly changes. Not only is the tech much easier to get, the investment into the attack doesn't happen until you actually get there. You might get there and see your opponent exceptionally well setup to stop your harass and just not bother warping anything in, or you can go for the throat and keep adding more units to the equation. Your opponent also needs a very specific set of units to defend and you can adjust your warp ins based on what he has defensively. Your opponent needs to scout correctly, adjust his build correctly and control his units extremely well if he wants to hold the pressure without suffering game ending damage. If he slips up at all in any of these area's he's going to end up losing the game. You as the attacker even if you fly your warp prism straight to it's death by mistake at the very start are at absolute worst marginally behind, and that's what the problem is. At the highest possible level we still see pro players losing to very basic harassment like mine drops, hellion runbys/drops and Warp Prism centric attacks. This happens an absolute ton, and has led to a meta game that is much more in favour of the player who is doing committed aggression. The simple fact is you don't fall too far behind if an aggressive attack fails so there's very little reason to try and be the defender. When dealing with it at every other level the games can become very frustrating to play very quickly and at the end of the day the vast majority of people play Starcraft 2 for fun. The most fun for me with Starcraft is the learning experience, the feeling of improvement game to game. When I lose to a mine drop because I didn't see it in the 3-4 seconds I get to spot it coming in I'm not learning, I'm just wasting time in a lost game from a situation I already know how to handle. It's one thing to fail to split marines in a bigger battle or skirmish, or to miss my snipes on the High Templar and get my ghosts feedbacked first it's something totally different to watch my mineral line burn to an oracle with no way to minimize the damage it's doing by pulling etc. For every 8 oracles I scout properly and defend well, the other 2 I don't scout end the game. The 8 times I do defend it properly? it's usually still a very even game because of what I have to invest to defend it. It has to be easier for an attacker to capitalize on success or no one would ever attack. When an attempted attack/harass first hits, the defender has an advantage. The defender may not use that advantage or he may already be losing so using that advantage isn't enough, but he certainly has an advantage. Given the existence of a defender's advantage, the encounter must have more potential rewards for the attacker than for the defender, otherwise why would the attacker ever initiate it? There is only one reason he would: he knows he's a better player and he sees it as the path of minimal risk, relying on his ability to outplay his opponent. If that's the case, he deserves to win. But if the players are of equal skill and the chances of success are not equal, then the player with less chance of success must have the potential for a greater reward.
If there is a situation where it is not possible to efficiently defend, then point it out specifically and I'm sure Blizzard would address it. If you know how to defend everything but feel that you don't have enough tools for scouting, then show that and Blizzard will address it. Zerg had these issues in early game ZvP in WoL and Blizzard buffed queens (to generally be better at defense) and overlords (to be better at scouting). However it is ok for a bit of rock-paper-scissors to exist in the game, and if you hate that then it's just gotta be something you accept as a necessary evil so that the more satisfying aspects of fog of war can exist.
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On September 26 2015 00:07 NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2015 10:26 Filter wrote:On September 24 2015 11:16 NonY wrote:On September 24 2015 06:01 [PkF] Wire wrote:On September 24 2015 05:03 DinoMight wrote:On September 24 2015 03:12 NonY wrote: I'm absolutely certain that players have put more effort into developing aggressive harassment-based builds than they have into developing defensive anti-harassment builds. If you don't like the way games are playing out, then start on the project of mapping out and spreading good build orders so the bad builds that rely on the ignorance of the opponent lose traction.
There are basically four things you need to pay attention to when countering threats: (1) when playing in the dark, do a build that is capable of responding to the threat when you first detect it or without detecting it, (2) figure out when you need to detect it to be able to respond in time, (3) figure out how to get that scouting done and (4) figure out the most efficient way to repel the threat. Simple. But this can take SO much experimentation to nail down a build that deals with everything. And most people aren't even trying yet.
edit: In other words, I think the counter-measures possible in the game will prove to be good enough in the long run and it's not surprising that they aren't winning the arms race early on. This is a very smart post. I like the general attitude, but things like warp prisms or invincible Nydus are going to come back and bite us. I don't see why they would. The defender still has a significant advantage, enough to invest in a little bit of upgrade/research/econ that the attacker can't and still take good trades. Attacker gets ahead by investing more in army and putting his army in good positions. Defender can invest the same amount and have an easier time getting in good positions, but can save money on warp prism or nydus or whatever method is being used for mobility. The issue isn't that things can't be defended, it's more that the requirements of the defender are much greater than those of the attacker. Looking at a Brood War example and the shuttle and reaver are both large up front investments that you have to carefully micro and move around to do damage. Make a mistake with it and lose either the shuttle or the reaver and the harass is completely shut out. You lose the window if you have to wait for another shuttle and reaver to bring over to do critical damage and from that point on you're playing from behind. Flipping over to SC2 and your investment suddenly changes. Not only is the tech much easier to get, the investment into the attack doesn't happen until you actually get there. You might get there and see your opponent exceptionally well setup to stop your harass and just not bother warping anything in, or you can go for the throat and keep adding more units to the equation. Your opponent also needs a very specific set of units to defend and you can adjust your warp ins based on what he has defensively. Your opponent needs to scout correctly, adjust his build correctly and control his units extremely well if he wants to hold the pressure without suffering game ending damage. If he slips up at all in any of these area's he's going to end up losing the game. You as the attacker even if you fly your warp prism straight to it's death by mistake at the very start are at absolute worst marginally behind, and that's what the problem is. At the highest possible level we still see pro players losing to very basic harassment like mine drops, hellion runbys/drops and Warp Prism centric attacks. This happens an absolute ton, and has led to a meta game that is much more in favour of the player who is doing committed aggression. The simple fact is you don't fall too far behind if an aggressive attack fails so there's very little reason to try and be the defender. When dealing with it at every other level the games can become very frustrating to play very quickly and at the end of the day the vast majority of people play Starcraft 2 for fun. The most fun for me with Starcraft is the learning experience, the feeling of improvement game to game. When I lose to a mine drop because I didn't see it in the 3-4 seconds I get to spot it coming in I'm not learning, I'm just wasting time in a lost game from a situation I already know how to handle. It's one thing to fail to split marines in a bigger battle or skirmish, or to miss my snipes on the High Templar and get my ghosts feedbacked first it's something totally different to watch my mineral line burn to an oracle with no way to minimize the damage it's doing by pulling etc. For every 8 oracles I scout properly and defend well, the other 2 I don't scout end the game. The 8 times I do defend it properly? it's usually still a very even game because of what I have to invest to defend it. It has to be easier for an attacker to capitalize on success or no one would ever attack. When an attempted attack/harass first hits, the defender has an advantage. The defender may not use that advantage or he may already be losing so using that advantage isn't enough, but he certainly has an advantage. Given the existence of a defender's advantage, the encounter must have more potential rewards for the attacker than for the defender, otherwise why would the attacker ever initiate it? There is only one reason he would: he knows he's a better player and he sees it as the path of minimal risk, relying on his ability to outplay his opponent. If that's the case, he deserves to win. But if the players are of equal skill and the chances of success are not equal, then the player with less chance of success must have the potential for a greater reward. If there is a situation where it is not possible to efficiently defend, then point it out specifically and I'm sure Blizzard would address it. If you know how to defend everything but feel that you don't have enough tools for scouting, then show that and Blizzard will address it. Zerg had these issues in early game ZvP in WoL and Blizzard buffed queens (to generally be better at defense) and overlords (to be better at scouting). However it is ok for a bit of rock-paper-scissors to exist in the game, and if you hate that then it's just gotta be something you accept as a necessary evil so that the more satisfying aspects of fog of war can exist.
"If there is a situation where it is not possible to efficiently defend, then point it out specifically and I'm sure Blizzard would address it. If you know how to defend everything but feel that you don't have enough tools for scouting, then show that and Blizzard will address it."
Just quoted that above to highlight something. As a professional player, your mentality is that of a playing looking to win, and ensuring fair opportunity for both the aggressor to attack and the defender to defend.
Of course I agree.
But what I think what Filter is getting at is Starcraft is at the end a means of entertainment, and players are not only looking to win, but to have a rewarding experience while doing so. Even if there is fair opportunity, but the resultant gameplay is not enjoyable, what's the point? Take swarmhosts for example. When they were at their height, there was fair opportunity for both players to make plays, but the resultant gameplay was not just unenjoyable, it killed the HotS playerbase.
Of course this goes into the grey area of "what I think is fun vs. what you think is fun", which is subjective.
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On September 25 2015 04:50 KeksX wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2015 02:22 InfCereal wrote:On September 25 2015 01:20 Naracs_Duc wrote:On September 25 2015 00:16 Big J wrote: I just want to note that just because something doesn't hit your front, it can still be a plain timing attack and shouldn't automatically be considered "harassment". There is no misunderstanding. People on this thread are upset that they aren't as good as they imagine themselves to be, so they do the bnet forums thing and whine about how its Blizzard's fault. Which is why I wish Blizzard wouldn't listen to the community. Yeah because being in touch with your playerbase is such a dumb idea and we should leave development to people encaged in a room with no windows. Seriously, there is a massive difference between "listening to the community" and "doing whatever some random dude on teamliquid says".
News flash: Everyone things that its always "other people" who are the random dudes. The truth is that everyone is a random dude. And when Blizz listens to random dudes, we get what SC2 is now--the product everyone keeps asking for but always backs up on because it turns out they didn't really know what they were asking for to begin with.
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As time goes on people will learn to defend, and blizzard will (hopefully) nerf completely broken things, so the game will stabilize and game ending early game harassment damage will become a rare thing. Recall how ridiculous wol was in its infancy with the first banshee practically demolishing the entire mineral line.
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On September 26 2015 00:07 NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2015 10:26 Filter wrote:On September 24 2015 11:16 NonY wrote:On September 24 2015 06:01 [PkF] Wire wrote:On September 24 2015 05:03 DinoMight wrote:On September 24 2015 03:12 NonY wrote: I'm absolutely certain that players have put more effort into developing aggressive harassment-based builds than they have into developing defensive anti-harassment builds. If you don't like the way games are playing out, then start on the project of mapping out and spreading good build orders so the bad builds that rely on the ignorance of the opponent lose traction.
There are basically four things you need to pay attention to when countering threats: (1) when playing in the dark, do a build that is capable of responding to the threat when you first detect it or without detecting it, (2) figure out when you need to detect it to be able to respond in time, (3) figure out how to get that scouting done and (4) figure out the most efficient way to repel the threat. Simple. But this can take SO much experimentation to nail down a build that deals with everything. And most people aren't even trying yet.
edit: In other words, I think the counter-measures possible in the game will prove to be good enough in the long run and it's not surprising that they aren't winning the arms race early on. This is a very smart post. I like the general attitude, but things like warp prisms or invincible Nydus are going to come back and bite us. I don't see why they would. The defender still has a significant advantage, enough to invest in a little bit of upgrade/research/econ that the attacker can't and still take good trades. Attacker gets ahead by investing more in army and putting his army in good positions. Defender can invest the same amount and have an easier time getting in good positions, but can save money on warp prism or nydus or whatever method is being used for mobility. The issue isn't that things can't be defended, it's more that the requirements of the defender are much greater than those of the attacker. Looking at a Brood War example and the shuttle and reaver are both large up front investments that you have to carefully micro and move around to do damage. Make a mistake with it and lose either the shuttle or the reaver and the harass is completely shut out. You lose the window if you have to wait for another shuttle and reaver to bring over to do critical damage and from that point on you're playing from behind. Flipping over to SC2 and your investment suddenly changes. Not only is the tech much easier to get, the investment into the attack doesn't happen until you actually get there. You might get there and see your opponent exceptionally well setup to stop your harass and just not bother warping anything in, or you can go for the throat and keep adding more units to the equation. Your opponent also needs a very specific set of units to defend and you can adjust your warp ins based on what he has defensively. Your opponent needs to scout correctly, adjust his build correctly and control his units extremely well if he wants to hold the pressure without suffering game ending damage. If he slips up at all in any of these area's he's going to end up losing the game. You as the attacker even if you fly your warp prism straight to it's death by mistake at the very start are at absolute worst marginally behind, and that's what the problem is. At the highest possible level we still see pro players losing to very basic harassment like mine drops, hellion runbys/drops and Warp Prism centric attacks. This happens an absolute ton, and has led to a meta game that is much more in favour of the player who is doing committed aggression. The simple fact is you don't fall too far behind if an aggressive attack fails so there's very little reason to try and be the defender. When dealing with it at every other level the games can become very frustrating to play very quickly and at the end of the day the vast majority of people play Starcraft 2 for fun. The most fun for me with Starcraft is the learning experience, the feeling of improvement game to game. When I lose to a mine drop because I didn't see it in the 3-4 seconds I get to spot it coming in I'm not learning, I'm just wasting time in a lost game from a situation I already know how to handle. It's one thing to fail to split marines in a bigger battle or skirmish, or to miss my snipes on the High Templar and get my ghosts feedbacked first it's something totally different to watch my mineral line burn to an oracle with no way to minimize the damage it's doing by pulling etc. For every 8 oracles I scout properly and defend well, the other 2 I don't scout end the game. The 8 times I do defend it properly? it's usually still a very even game because of what I have to invest to defend it. It has to be easier for an attacker to capitalize on success or no one would ever attack. When an attempted attack/harass first hits, the defender has an advantage.
To sum up what filter and many others feel about harass so maybe you understand the argument better:
1) it's much easier skill-wise and APM-wise to execute most forms of harass than it is to defend it
For instance, it's super-easy to queue up a couple drops as terran with minimal APM. However, it can be pretty tricky and very APM-consuming for a defender to perfectly defend a 2-pronged drop
This might be ok if harass was super risky, but alas..
2) most harasses are barely damaging to the attacker if it fails, but can easily be game-ending to the defender
3) most harasses have a high chance of getting at least some damage done
the other two problems might be sort of ok if harass only worked a small % of the time, because at least people aren't getting screwed as often. But when harasses happen the attacker usually pulls at least slightly ahead in the game.
Having something so low-risk, high-reward is terrible game design for a strategy game because there is no longer a decision.
@ your point, I still think you would see plenty of harass if the things I discussed were more even or even slightly favoring the defender. Simply, you're forgetting about the element of surprise. Which type of harass and from what angle can be huge even if the defender has a statistical advantage.
With changes to fix these problems, harass would still exist but it would be an awesome, special thing, something that requires wit and ingenuity to really pull off well. Something exciting that would OOO and AHH the crowds when someone tries it rather than being such a run-of-the-mill every game thing.
+ Show Spoiler +Also, neuturing harass has the added benefit of not making people ragequit the game that aren't veterans, as filter discussed, which is great for growing the game. Although that is not the point I really wanted to focus on as it's not strictly bad game-design to put off newbies, just a decision on if you want your game to be more popular or not.
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It's fun because as soon as you know the counter-build and play safely you end up with an advantage. You gotta scout
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WoL PvT was harassment heaven, but eventually Protoss builds stabilized around 2base double forge. It was essentially impossible to effectively harass a protoss who knew what he was doing on 2 bases. The point is that builds are constructed around the possibility of harass, and if your build is weak against harass, then it's a weak build (in general). You also have to play the game knowing that there can be harass. This is what sc2 is about. A lot of builds depend on harassment damage as well, and the game revolves around minimizing this. Examples are widow mine drops, banshee builds, muta ling play, as well as oracle play.
For example, if you're Terran v T and going mech, and place all your units at your third, you don't get to complain about bio drops in your main being too effective.
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Russian Federation66 Posts
it was never fun. Or maybe i'm just not a DK
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On September 25 2015 10:26 Filter wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2015 11:16 NonY wrote:On September 24 2015 06:01 [PkF] Wire wrote:On September 24 2015 05:03 DinoMight wrote:On September 24 2015 03:12 NonY wrote: I'm absolutely certain that players have put more effort into developing aggressive harassment-based builds than they have into developing defensive anti-harassment builds. If you don't like the way games are playing out, then start on the project of mapping out and spreading good build orders so the bad builds that rely on the ignorance of the opponent lose traction.
There are basically four things you need to pay attention to when countering threats: (1) when playing in the dark, do a build that is capable of responding to the threat when you first detect it or without detecting it, (2) figure out when you need to detect it to be able to respond in time, (3) figure out how to get that scouting done and (4) figure out the most efficient way to repel the threat. Simple. But this can take SO much experimentation to nail down a build that deals with everything. And most people aren't even trying yet.
edit: In other words, I think the counter-measures possible in the game will prove to be good enough in the long run and it's not surprising that they aren't winning the arms race early on. This is a very smart post. I like the general attitude, but things like warp prisms or invincible Nydus are going to come back and bite us. I don't see why they would. The defender still has a significant advantage, enough to invest in a little bit of upgrade/research/econ that the attacker can't and still take good trades. Attacker gets ahead by investing more in army and putting his army in good positions. Defender can invest the same amount and have an easier time getting in good positions, but can save money on warp prism or nydus or whatever method is being used for mobility. The issue isn't that things can't be defended, it's more that the requirements of the defender are much greater than those of the attacker. Looking at a Brood War example and the shuttle and reaver are both large up front investments that you have to carefully micro and move around to do damage. Make a mistake with it and lose either the shuttle or the reaver and the harass is completely shut out. You lose the window if you have to wait for another shuttle and reaver to bring over to do critical damage and from that point on you're playing from behind. Flipping over to SC2 and your investment suddenly changes. Not only is the tech much easier to get, the investment into the attack doesn't happen until you actually get there. You might get there and see your opponent exceptionally well setup to stop your harass and just not bother warping anything in, or you can go for the throat and keep adding more units to the equation. Your opponent also needs a very specific set of units to defend and you can adjust your warp ins based on what he has defensively. Your opponent needs to scout correctly, adjust his build correctly and control his units extremely well if he wants to hold the pressure without suffering game ending damage. If he slips up at all in any of these area's he's going to end up losing the game. You as the attacker even if you fly your warp prism straight to it's death by mistake at the very start are at absolute worst marginally behind, and that's what the problem is. At the highest possible level we still see pro players losing to very basic harassment like mine drops, hellion runbys/drops and Warp Prism centric attacks. This happens an absolute ton, and has led to a meta game that is much more in favour of the player who is doing committed aggression. The simple fact is you don't fall too far behind if an aggressive attack fails so there's very little reason to try and be the defender. When dealing with it at every other level the games can become very frustrating to play very quickly and at the end of the day the vast majority of people play Starcraft 2 for fun. The most fun for me with Starcraft is the learning experience, the feeling of improvement game to game. When I lose to a mine drop because I didn't see it in the 3-4 seconds I get to spot it coming in I'm not learning, I'm just wasting time in a lost game from a situation I already know how to handle. It's one thing to fail to split marines in a bigger battle or skirmish, or to miss my snipes on the High Templar and get my ghosts feedbacked first it's something totally different to watch my mineral line burn to an oracle with no way to minimize the damage it's doing by pulling etc. For every 8 oracles I scout properly and defend well, the other 2 I don't scout end the game. The 8 times I do defend it properly? it's usually still a very even game because of what I have to invest to defend it.
This is why Phoenix openers are much better for the game instead of oracles: you take damage if it isnt scouted, but nothing game ending, it's a big investment, it's overall harder to excecute and the few Phoenixes scale well later in the game. They provided you with map control so you could stop drops against T or chrono out a void or two to defend with your Phoenixes against Z. You need to constantly be scouting and keeping tabs on the army while harassing. As for the oracle, it's a small investment, high risk high reward and pretty damn simple to execute. It wins you the game pretty much instantly if not scouted, whereas Phoenixes will give you an edge but you have to play AMAZINGLY to end the game with 3-5 Phoenixes. Oracles are much easier and rewarding, but Phoenixes are harder and have perks of their own that they provide over the oracle: the oracles harass is all or nothing, meaning you waste a ton of energy if you don't kill anything. You can always do harass damage with the Phoenix, and it's not as strong. Pulsar beam should just be removed and the oracle should be given another supporting (Supporting!!!) ability: maybe some sort of shield-healing beam or small mass-recall ability at the fleet beacon. The oracle should just be some unit you make 1-2 of later in the game to drop mines, throw down revelation and...something else.
EDIT: the advantages that the Phoenix provides over th oracle are also harder to capitalize on.
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Oracle are the worst unit in the game design wise. It's a unit you can build in any matchup before/after an expand without any risk to take damage on any kind of counter attack. It's very easy to micro, it can kill instantly a worker line if there is no appropriate defense. It forces the ennemy to invest a lot of money into defense. AND STILL. EVEN IF YOU HAVE A GOOD DEFENSE. The unit is worth it with revelation + scouting + occasional worker snipe.
Let's compare it to the banshee. The banshee, because it is built in a teched starport, delays your production. It takes longer to build. It's easier to loose. It take quite some time to kill a worker line. STILL, you can pay 100/100 to give it a game ending potential. In WOL, it costed 200/200 : it was a HUGE investment.
HOTS already took the "stronk harass" road. Reduced DT shrine cost, oracle, banshee, widow mine drops, medivac boost. Consequences : - band aid MSC that gives protoss the ability to invest massively in harassment... and still be safe - terran bio is now SO WEAK in head on fight, because it has to be balanced around the boosted medivac
I fear for LOTV. Hope it's not gonna be a harass fest of fast units killing defenseless workers since someone runs out of money. Because what's the main consequence of a harass this strong? People start camping. They start building turrets in TvP at 5 minutes.
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On October 01 2015 00:51 JackONeill wrote: Oracle are the worst unit in the game design wise. It's a unit you can build in any matchup before/after an expand without any risk to take damage on any kind of counter attack. It's very easy to micro, it can kill instantly a worker line if there is no appropriate defense. It forces the ennemy to invest a lot of money into defense. AND STILL. EVEN IF YOU HAVE A GOOD DEFENSE. The unit is worth it with revelation + scouting + occasional worker snipe.
Let's compare it to the banshee. The banshee, because it is built in a teched starport, delays your production. It takes longer to build. It's easier to loose. It take quite some time to kill a worker line. STILL, you can pay 100/100 to give it a game ending potential. In WOL, it costed 200/200 : it was a HUGE investment.
HOTS already took the "stronk harass" road. Reduced DT shrine cost, oracle, banshee, widow mine drops, medivac boost. Consequences : - band aid MSC that gives protoss the ability to invest massively in harassment... and still be safe - terran bio is now SO WEAK in head on fight, because it has to be balanced around the boosted medivac
I fear for LOTV. Hope it's not gonna be a harass fest of fast units killing defenseless workers since someone runs out of money. Because what's the main consequence of a harass this strong? People start camping. They start building turrets in TvP at 5 minutes. "oracles flying in and ending the game is not gimmicky. It's just starcraft."-DK 2015. seriously if oracles stay in its current state I will be very disappointed.
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The oracle is fine: it's pulsar beam that's the problem. The oracle was meant to be a support vessel: not a harass unit. P has enough ways to harass. This is evident since it has revelation/envision, stasis ward and -had- time warp. Honestly, pulsar beam should be replaced with time warp and the MSC should be removed/reworked. Other changes can be put into the game to make the oracle harder to use: one thing can be to decrease it's turn rate to make it a bit clunkier. This still makes it viable, but harder to use and better players will learn to control their oracles. I'm also in favour of re-implementing the BW spell casting system. The plays that can be made with it can be absolutely legendary
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The OP goes too far with what I think has a good point somewhere. Basically that low risk, (extremely) high reward harrass is really bad. Like if a terran loses 2 widow mines, so what? If the protoss loses probes to said widow mines, gg. Same goes for oracles. This principle does not apply to some of the other things listed, like roach all ins or DTS. Not even close.
Also who ever asked for boostvacs? Did anyone look at drops in wol and say, "wow, screw the siege tank, drops really need help" ?
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On October 01 2015 02:12 Little-Chimp wrote: This principle does not apply to some of the other things listed, like roach all ins or DTS. Not even close.
Yeah. Roaches aren't harass either: it's an all-in. It's like saying an immortal push is just harass
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On September 23 2015 05:45 xTJx wrote: Welcome to life as a Zerg player. Been watching my drones die to helions and my hatcheries fall to sudden warp prisms and 5 zealots warp ins for years, and there aren't any photon overchargers or walls to save us, not even 1 or 2 spines will do the job.
This is what I want to tell every non-Zerg player.. Lol.
More on topic, I totally agree with OP. My teammate and I were just talking the other day how we felt that in HotS and LotV the better player doesn't always win. WoL felt closer to this. The cheap game-ending harass units make the overall feel of the game scary and gimmicky.
EDIT: Fuck flying Siege Tanks. Lets take the most positional unit, and instead of adding overkill, more damage, and more time between shots, lets make it fly. Not that I think it's broken, it's just not a good idea. t.t
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On September 26 2015 00:07 NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2015 10:26 Filter wrote:On September 24 2015 11:16 NonY wrote:On September 24 2015 06:01 [PkF] Wire wrote:On September 24 2015 05:03 DinoMight wrote:On September 24 2015 03:12 NonY wrote: I'm absolutely certain that players have put more effort into developing aggressive harassment-based builds than they have into developing defensive anti-harassment builds. If you don't like the way games are playing out, then start on the project of mapping out and spreading good build orders so the bad builds that rely on the ignorance of the opponent lose traction.
There are basically four things you need to pay attention to when countering threats: (1) when playing in the dark, do a build that is capable of responding to the threat when you first detect it or without detecting it, (2) figure out when you need to detect it to be able to respond in time, (3) figure out how to get that scouting done and (4) figure out the most efficient way to repel the threat. Simple. But this can take SO much experimentation to nail down a build that deals with everything. And most people aren't even trying yet.
edit: In other words, I think the counter-measures possible in the game will prove to be good enough in the long run and it's not surprising that they aren't winning the arms race early on. This is a very smart post. I like the general attitude, but things like warp prisms or invincible Nydus are going to come back and bite us. I don't see why they would. The defender still has a significant advantage, enough to invest in a little bit of upgrade/research/econ that the attacker can't and still take good trades. Attacker gets ahead by investing more in army and putting his army in good positions. Defender can invest the same amount and have an easier time getting in good positions, but can save money on warp prism or nydus or whatever method is being used for mobility. The issue isn't that things can't be defended, it's more that the requirements of the defender are much greater than those of the attacker. Looking at a Brood War example and the shuttle and reaver are both large up front investments that you have to carefully micro and move around to do damage. Make a mistake with it and lose either the shuttle or the reaver and the harass is completely shut out. You lose the window if you have to wait for another shuttle and reaver to bring over to do critical damage and from that point on you're playing from behind. Flipping over to SC2 and your investment suddenly changes. Not only is the tech much easier to get, the investment into the attack doesn't happen until you actually get there. You might get there and see your opponent exceptionally well setup to stop your harass and just not bother warping anything in, or you can go for the throat and keep adding more units to the equation. Your opponent also needs a very specific set of units to defend and you can adjust your warp ins based on what he has defensively. Your opponent needs to scout correctly, adjust his build correctly and control his units extremely well if he wants to hold the pressure without suffering game ending damage. If he slips up at all in any of these area's he's going to end up losing the game. You as the attacker even if you fly your warp prism straight to it's death by mistake at the very start are at absolute worst marginally behind, and that's what the problem is. At the highest possible level we still see pro players losing to very basic harassment like mine drops, hellion runbys/drops and Warp Prism centric attacks. This happens an absolute ton, and has led to a meta game that is much more in favour of the player who is doing committed aggression. The simple fact is you don't fall too far behind if an aggressive attack fails so there's very little reason to try and be the defender. When dealing with it at every other level the games can become very frustrating to play very quickly and at the end of the day the vast majority of people play Starcraft 2 for fun. The most fun for me with Starcraft is the learning experience, the feeling of improvement game to game. When I lose to a mine drop because I didn't see it in the 3-4 seconds I get to spot it coming in I'm not learning, I'm just wasting time in a lost game from a situation I already know how to handle. It's one thing to fail to split marines in a bigger battle or skirmish, or to miss my snipes on the High Templar and get my ghosts feedbacked first it's something totally different to watch my mineral line burn to an oracle with no way to minimize the damage it's doing by pulling etc. For every 8 oracles I scout properly and defend well, the other 2 I don't scout end the game. The 8 times I do defend it properly? it's usually still a very even game because of what I have to invest to defend it. It has to be easier for an attacker to capitalize on success or no one would ever attack. When an attempted attack/harass first hits, the defender has an advantage. The defender may not use that advantage or he may already be losing so using that advantage isn't enough, but he certainly has an advantage. Given the existence of a defender's advantage, the encounter must have more potential rewards for the attacker than for the defender, otherwise why would the attacker ever initiate it? There is only one reason he would: he knows he's a better player and he sees it as the path of minimal risk, relying on his ability to outplay his opponent. If that's the case, he deserves to win. But if the players are of equal skill and the chances of success are not equal, then the player with less chance of success must have the potential for a greater reward.
You're talking about defender's advantage vs. "teching for aggression," i.e. I stop focusing on economy and start making army units, and if I'm not scouted adequately, then I'm going to have a bigger standing army or a more high-tech standing army, and that will allow me to have an easier time during our next encounter, whenever I choose to attack. That's true and it's perfectly fine.
There are two factors to consider that are less fine than that.
The first is that the sort of units frequently used for such aggressive strategies are remarkably easy to control. Take the ZvT Roach all-in that's been with us since 2010. I exaggerate, but only just, when I say that a Diamond player could execute one against INnoVation as well as Life would. It takes no finesse to execute the strategy once the Roaches are on the field. You don't have to be better than your opponent to beat him; you don't even have to be AS good.
If Roaches were remarkably difficult to control well during an all-in, the Roach all-in would still be a very effective strategy because you could still tech for aggression to give yourself an advantage. It would be less likely to give a lesser skilled player a victory over his opponent, however; but as I prefer to see the more skilled player winning as often as possible, I don't see this as a downside at all.
The second is that some forms of high-pressure builds require minimal commitment. Take Warp Prism all ins in LOTV. It has lots of soft commitments - you have to get a bunch of Gateways to take advantage of Warp Prism, you have to get a Robo Bay - but those are only conditional downsides. As long as your follow-up takes advantage of all this infrastructure, you're not coming out far behind. The hard commitment? 200 minerals. You pay 200 minerals for a chance to end the game right on the spot. And this hard commitment isn't even that hard, because the WP's speed and durability allow it to escape most defenses. You're not really putting the WP in harm's way. You can try, try again.
Compare this to, say, Mutalisk harassment. For a chance at the same kind of game-ending damage, Muta harassment requires a HUGE up-front resource investment, like 2K gas; it requires you to instantly put that entire investment at risk for any sort of hope of payoff; and now you have a bunch of Mutalisks. If you find that you can't do damage with them, that's a ton of dead supply in a dead tech route.
The player who went for Mutas took a huge risk and deserves a chance to be able to deal game-winning damage. The player who went for WP did not, and does not.
This becomes a huge problem when Protoss is capable of going for game-ending pressure with Adepts+WP, Stalkers+MSC, DTs, or Oracles, and of these only DTs require a substantial commitment on the part of the Protoss (ironically, they're the least effective and least often seen), but each one requires a committed defense from a Terran. 2014 and LOTV right now show us the extreme versions of how this can go wrong - Protoss gets a huge econ lead while Terran goes out of his way to defend an attack that may never come - but tipping the balance scales doesn't rectify the core issue. Pressure should requirement commitment.
On September 30 2015 07:56 Fatam wrote: For instance, it's super-easy to queue up a couple drops as terran with minimal APM. However, it can be pretty tricky and very APM-consuming for a defender to perfectly defend a 2-pronged drop
This might be ok if harass was super risky, but alas..
Bio harassment isn't risky? Bio harassment is as risky as it gets, because past the early game, Terrans pressure and harass with their core army units. Every time you see just two Medivacs dropping, that's 1000/200+ resources being committed to making this harassment work, and more importantly, 20+ supply. Two Feedbacks can kill those 2 Medivacs in an instant (also: Storms, PO+Blink Stalkers, WMs, sieged Tanks, Vikings, active Mutas) and suddenly the Terran is down 20 core army supply and you're not.
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Bio harass is not necessarily risky, you should usually scan where you're dropping. This makes it into a heavier investment to drop in general though.
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