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Is random miss & damage reduction the only alternatives everyone can think of?
IMHO the best way would be to change the Rate Of Fire (preferably by adding % in the cooldown) for units in low ground (in an advanced technology war you can probably hit an opponent in high ground for 100% damage, but it would take longer to aim, thus the delay)
This doesn't involve any randomness (it's good to avoid it, I've seen a few instances of scouts surviving dragoon shots due to miss in SCBW), doesn't alter the number of hits required for a kill, adds another discrete element in the game (which is good for competitivity, as these magnify the effects of subtle controls), and ensures that the one in the high ground has a chance to attack, and the one in the low ground at least takes damage.
As for the warp gate nerf... the pylon rule is kinda nice =)
Another possibility (kinda fits in the 3rd option) is to scrap the warp gate research, but require a Twilight Council for changing modes/ for warping in. This would give protoss more tech flexibility, but would delay warpgates a little.
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here's a TL stats nerd with a number crunch.
Ha ha ha ha
This is a very good news item, I really hope Blizzard tries out different defender strategies. I've been watching many SC2Beta matches and I felt that something big was missing... Then I watched a SC1 Pro-gaming match and I realized that attacking a base should feel more risky than it currently does.
Also, as far as Proxy rushing, I love each of the suggestions you mentioned! But I think the "simplest" solution would be to simply make the research time of the warp-gate function much longer, without moving the tech-tree placement, so that there's more time to prepare defenses. Maybe even 3 times as long to research as currently?
I've always felt that Warp-in function was overpowered to begin with, and the beta is proving this to me. I suppose the Medivac and Nydus canal are supposed to balance this by being equally overpowered, but why not make warping a little more risky?
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On March 10 2010 06:18 Vasoline73 wrote:
Dude what the eff with people saying "plz no randomness."
And before anyone with 18 posts says "hurp durp are warp gates and aliens IRL? nothing has to be realistic", I'm just saying strategically the game is much more interesting if low ground has a miss % instead of a set damage reduction. The game is deeper and battles will plays out more as it should, where high ground is just one aspect of "advantage" in an encounter. A set damage reduction is really shallow and like Chill alluded to once, makes the game easier to fully comprehend. Attacking from the low ground should be a risk. When you know "ok im fighting with 30% damage reduction but I know how much stuff he has with my obs so I know I'll win the fight regardless of the ramp and wall in" it's not a question anymore. Attacking from the low ground should be a choice.. by making the damage reduced you take away that choice because people will always know when it's right to engage from the low ground and when it's wrong. Which is boring and shallow IMO. And less realistic in a battle.
It's 8 posts, not 18. Which doesn't help with your weak "arguments". Could be my first post and what you say would still be nonsense.
You do not provide any tangible argument, which as we grown ups call it, is essential for a fact based discussion. So you "feel" a certain way about the game which will in any shape or form diminish the game's viability for competition. Fine, please take them to the howdoyoufeel forums. Being able to luck out on a tankshot and win a battle because your colossus gets off a crucial last thermal lance maybe fun and exciting, but as important as excitement is, I guess most people who visit this site will agree that the game being a vessel for professional competition is more important.
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Good read, thanks for taking the time to put it together.
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South Africa4316 Posts
On March 10 2010 09:19 Maceifer wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2010 06:18 Vasoline73 wrote:
Dude what the eff with people saying "plz no randomness."
And before anyone with 18 posts says "hurp durp are warp gates and aliens IRL? nothing has to be realistic", I'm just saying strategically the game is much more interesting if low ground has a miss % instead of a set damage reduction. The game is deeper and battles will plays out more as it should, where high ground is just one aspect of "advantage" in an encounter. A set damage reduction is really shallow and like Chill alluded to once, makes the game easier to fully comprehend. Attacking from the low ground should be a risk. When you know "ok im fighting with 30% damage reduction but I know how much stuff he has with my obs so I know I'll win the fight regardless of the ramp and wall in" it's not a question anymore. Attacking from the low ground should be a choice.. by making the damage reduced you take away that choice because people will always know when it's right to engage from the low ground and when it's wrong. Which is boring and shallow IMO. And less realistic in a battle.
It's 8 posts, not 18. Which doesn't help with your weak "arguments". Could be my first post and what you say would still be nonsense. You do not provide any tangible argument, which as we grown ups call it, is essential for a fact based discussion. So you "feel" a certain way about the game which will in any shape or form diminish the game's viability for competition. Fine, please take them to the howdoyoufeel forums. Being able to luck out on a tankshot and win a battle because your colossus gets off a crucial last thermal lance maybe fun and exciting, but as important as excitement is, I guess most people who visit this site will agree that the game being a vessel for professional competition is more important.
It's funny, but the people who visit the site, and who have followed Starcraft for a long time, seem to either not care whether its misses or damage reduction, or prefer damage reduction. So far 8 people have posted saying "no random please" in some form or another in this thread. The median post count for these posters is 30 posts, which is very low. Only one of these posters has more than 1500 posts, the point where posters might be considered veteran. On the other hand, I know that many of the better players say that miss is a better solution (for example, incontrol and Chill). I'm not saying that the older players are right here, it might just be that they are used to the old way, but it definitely can't be said that all competitive people agree.
All in all, this issue has been argued to infinity and back without any real results, and people seem intent on doing it again in this thread. The point of my stats was not that miss is better or worse than damage reduction, simply that it is easier to balance. A 50% miss chance means that all units do 50% as much effective damage to higher ground, while a 50% damage reduction means that some units will kick much more ass against higher ground (tanks for example), than others. I also had a second scenario which looked at the problems with the way armor is calculated, but I excluded it because I'm not sure exactly when the armor is calculated in.
In the end, both systems can be made to work. Miss-chance is slightly more intuitive and easier to balance, while damage reduction is more predictable. The point of the newspost is that something needs to be done, be it miss or damage reduction, my section was just a bit of information on why these two things aren't exactly the same.
If you insist on discussing it, then the Anakin thread is a good place to do so. I think this post should be required reading on the topic, as it summarises all the main points and addresses some of the misconceptions very well.
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i'm pretty sure the math in miss chance v damage reduction isn't math
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Good read, it was accessible even to people without a key or who play Terran.
One thinks that all the talk with the cliffs would have been glaringly obvious to the devs when making this new mechanic, and that they would have already considered the old 1/3 miss one. That kinda of makes me think it won't really change too much and they will instead look for another way around it.
As for PvP yeah it really needs something - personally I thought of those 3 solutions myself, except that having a pylon in their powered area (which you can't see, adding some element of savvy required) cancels out their warp-in effect. I think having the two fields meet cancelling it out is not as managable and your pylon could theoretically be really far away and it would still cancel it out which seems unintuitive.
Or even if it's not pylon, and it's an enemy gateway in their power section it might alleviate it to some degree. I really like the basic idea though as it only affects this one problem match-up.
Higher up tech tree affects the other match-ups a lot, so I am not a fan.
The whole 'further away takes more time' thing seems a little complicated, and from what we've seen they are trying to keep SC2 relatively simple so a hunch tells me I don't think this will be implemented.
Even something like not being able to warp in near mineral lines or something could be good too.
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I really hope Blizzard isn't going to just be content with the way things are and say "It's close enough, we can tweak it later" because now is their chance to do all sorts of crazy shit and possibly hit the jackpot with an alteration.
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I'll take drone's word for it if only because he is awesome and an experienced(old) SC player who has SCII beta(deserved it too). 9/10 doctors? WTF lol.
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Thank you daigomi and ckjy for contributing to the discussion with 1. calm and 2. correct information from 3. the proper perspective.
I hate myself for prolonging the argument here but I can't help fighting the bandwagon echo chamber: randomness in games is not inherently bad, and it doesn't automatically make them less competitive. I say this mostly just so the viewpoint is represented for perpetuity, when others peruse this thread. I have yet to see a cohesive argument to the contrary. If you know of one, please point me there so I can debate it. Theory aside, if you need a real life example, look at poker.
Great article!
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Why not just increase the bonus damage taken while warping in so that a few probes could kill a zealot under warp? I keep mentioning this but no one seems to respond to it
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I really really agree with this. Reinstating ramp miss chance (or damage reduction) will add SO MUCH dynamic to the game. There need to be places on a map where a small ammount of units can defend well. It's not fun to have all your builds be geared so that you at all points in a game can beat your opponent in an open battle with all your units. How is that adding to strategic depth?
In my opinion this is the #1 reason why all in attacks are broken in this beta.
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Sorry but in SC1 isn't the protoss army dependent on preventing obs sniping against zerg?
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I'm really interested in what Blizzard thinks about the OP's issues.
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On March 10 2010 11:59 mishimaBeef wrote:
Sorry but in SC1 isn't the protoss army dependent on preventing obs sniping against zerg?
That's to keep the Lurkers alive and has nothing to do with the high ground advantage being discussed here.
A damage reduction for lower armies is not a good way to create a high ground advantage at all. This makes the choice whether to engage uphill or not simply a matter of knowing that you have enough units to engage. Also, this simply creates an effect where units on the high ground will simply be able to absorb more damage. Miss percent chance is better because units will still be only able to take as many hits as normal, and it makes the decision of whether to engage uphill or not more dependent on whether the player is willing to take the risk to engage. The core issue is that if there is a spotter, the two armies might as well be engaging on the same level so there really is no reason not to attack.
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Preface, I haven't played much pvp in beta:
But another suggestion I might make is to give the nexus an additional ability much like the orbital command that does massive damage to a building in range X of the nexus, and gives a trade off to risking chrono boosting before scouting in pvp much like mindless mules can bite you if you don't' have energy for scan when you need it. Also people aren't yet brainstorming advantage of the high ground properly, consider terran wall off, if you wall off on the low ground and repair they can't "snipe" your units since they can't get vision though this is of course disadvantaged if the opponents range is similar.
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Nice post Nazgul - thanks for the good read
Hope the next patch addresses this stuff
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I really like the first idea to deal with the PvP warp gate rushing. The other two are less attractive to me as it impacts the whole warp-gate dynamic a lot more than needed for other matchups. Besides, if pylons cancel the warp technology out for each other it could lead to a lot of interesting skirmishes for just a single pylon and its position. x]
Even if no changes are made I'm sure the MU will develop just fine. Perhaps PvP will be the new ZvZ, with very few viable strategies and a fast-paced micro game.
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Good post, I agree with everything in it. It really seems like blizzard got bored with grey-areas and just took everything to its black and white extreme. I have a hard time believing they seriously didn't think of some of these situations, so I wonder what their justification was to keep them this way.
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EPT
