On July 24 2010 10:08 anoobis wrote: EMP is absolutely a wow spell since high templar has higher feed back range than the ghost's emp.
not truly in the sense this article is saying. it's one sided micro. u can't dodge emp. itll get off 98% of the time.
the truly wow thing will be templars feedbacking every individual ghost. in the current state, that's the only wow thing, but only so b/c it's impossible to pull off. reaver scarabs were wow, but it wasn't impossible by any means.
Depends on what you consider "dodging". If you mean he has to cast first then yes you can't dodge. But when you see a ghost getting in position you can micro your units around so they don't get hit.
On July 24 2010 05:40 Lane wrote: This proves that people on these forums only respect people based on their post count, and how big of a post they type.
The OP is clearly Protoss biased, and gives bad info and suggestions.
- Banelings are already vulnerable to being killed early without dealing any damage. This gets worse and worse late game. Suggesting a nerf on top of this just doesn't make any sense.
- Fungal Growth does 36 damage over 8 seconds, not 80 like the OP says. It's not even enough to kill Marines. And he continues to exaggerate the power of this ability even more.
- He says Protoss can never dodge EMP, which is not true. Many of the EMP shots miss their targets all the time, even in the pro-level games. Because units sometimes can move out of the way while Ghost is trying to get in range to do the shot. The ability has already been nerfed. There is no need for more.
- He says more of Terran and Zerg units should die from a single storm, if not micro'ed, because currently there is not enough incentive to dodge it. Really? First of all, he doesn't even mention that Hydras die from a single storm (80HP) and are expensive units. He says it "cripples" them. That is incorrect, it actually kills them. Also, who says a single storm should kill most units. Why shouldn't there be an incentive for getting more than one HT?
- Adding cast time to Fungal Growth just so Terran bio can dodge it is also a terrible idea. Terran bio with the combination of Stim Pack and Concussive shells already prevents Zerg from running away from combat. It is only fair that Fungal Growth exists that can do the same, which by the way is more expensive and micro heavy in comparison. It's not like Terran bio is melee based. Fungal Growth does not even stop them from shooting.
Again, people should read and analyze a post before throwing empty praises at someone.
Okay first, the respect/posts part is not true. They do get priority but most of the respect is due to a long history of quality posts that got them to that number. I, myself do not have many posts (spent most of my time on TL without an account, just reading stuff) so I'll leave this up to others (reading the 10 commandments explains the idea behind the many posts → respect, check it out sometime).
The EMP dodging is referring to after the EMP has been launched. Sure the units can dodge before the ghost gets in range, but that isn't really dodging then because the shot hasn't been fired. The Terran player could just as easily cancel the EMP and aim it again. The problem is that if the ghost is commanded to shoot while in range, there's a little to no chance that you can dodge it.
As for storm, Plexa is not saying that it should be stronger. He's saying that it should be a situation where a gamer has to make the on-the-spot decision of "should I stay knowing that I can do more now, or should I run knowing that I'll survive and be able to do more later"
Same with the Fungal Growth. I'm not trying to argue balance here, and neither is the OP. His suggestions weren't meant to be isolated and you're treating them as such. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of readers read this in context of adding competitive play, excitement for watching, as well as more power to the gamer. Try rereading the post with a different attitude before you disregard everything and write a rebuttal.
Sure the post isn't perfect in writing (though IMO it's pretty darn good), but what a lot of people who disagree are missing is that the purpose for this being written is to introduce the "wow" factor that made SC:BW so much fun to play and watch.
Sorry if I came off as a bit rude; I tried my best to be critical but honest.
Doesn't matter if balance is not the issue. By trying to put on "wow" artificially like that you throw off balance anyway. All the changes combined are so heavily toss-friendly that anyone who agrees 100% with the post must be joking.
And it doesn't help any "wow" factor introducing harder to hit spells. There are a LOT of underused units in the game as is and the units that are used often are not used that well.
The game is not as clunky and is a lot smarter than BW. Units FEEL more fragile and the game FEELS faster. A lot of actions spent in BW can now be used elsewhere in SC2. Micro is a lot more delicate because of scale too.
And I have seen a lot of really really impressive SC2. Just saw one last night on Day9. Great use of a wide range of units (some of wich are considered bad by some users) and with LOTS of room for improvements from both sides (we all know what game that was right?).
But once again, I'm not trying to argue balance here, and neither is the OP. His suggestions weren't meant to be isolated and you're treating them as such.. Plexa, along with the collective community want to introduce that wow factor, but I doubt any of us would want that more than we want balance. These ideas can be introduced along with other things to maintain balance, if not increase it. Yes, the game is smarter and plays differently than BW, but what we're vying for is the interactive play that made the skill cap that much higher. The game that you're referencing was fantastic and I loved the variety of units, but I don't think it should take that much to have an amazing match.
In closing, I want to quote the OP:
On July 23 2010 18:28 Plexa wrote: The ideas presented here are just ideas. They are ideas that we feel have the right design philosophy behind them, but they are not restrictive in any way. The changes we suggested are designed to motivate players to micro and encourage control based counters to units as opposed to unit based counters.
EDIT: Just saw Saracen's post. I'll remove this if Mods feel it's unnecessary.
Do you really feel that the game mechanics are what really limits "microing" as is? The changes in the article are not meant to take in consideration game balance and whatnot, I get that. If you look at each one individually there are some that makes sense and there are others that doesn't.
Killed banelings doing less damage makes no sense at all. It isn't a problem AND MICROING THE BANELINGS ALREADY HAS A HIGHER REWARD. That's KEY. Most of the others suggestions might seem like good ideas, making timing your spells rewarding but I fail to see any suggestion in the original post that would reward Protoss in the same manner.
Making storms more powerful isn't a suggestion, it's asking for a buff. Infestors are underused anyway and in a lot of games you see people simply SCREW UP a LOT.
You guys are trying to fix and push the skill cap on something that no one has yet dominated. I do not care how one "feels" or one "thinks" about the game. We all can download and watch replays from those players who "feels" the game is somewhat easier to master and see a gigantic number of mistakes in every game.
You see a LOT of units killed for nothing, you see a LOT of harass fail for lack of micro. How many games did you see that a player has the capacity to strike on multiple bases at the same time without losing focus on one of the "fronts" and keep up with the macro? I have seen hundreds of casts and not ONE single game that happened with success.
And the unit variety to do that is there. You can drop with pretty much any race, you can nydus worm, reaper harass, banshee cloak, void ray harass, colossus harass, baneling bust an open expansion, raven harass, DT harass, helion harass, infested terran bombing and more.
There are tons and tons of strategies that are not explored and even the "pros" display some very poor micro most of the times. How many times have you seen a proper use of blinking stalkers? You can blink out of focus fire so fast that it really screws up the enemy AI. All we see from 99,9% of the players is the "something" ball, one control group army.
It really surprises me how one can complain about lack of micro if they can't micro what they have properly.
I absolutely agree that the total micro potential has not be explored and I'm sure everyine else would agree. However, the type of micro you are describing in not the same as Plexa's. Sure you can spread out your Protoss army so emp are not quite so deadly. But people won't cheer for that. People will cheer if they see the emp shoot out and the protoss player immediately retreats to take half as much damage. That's the 'wow' factor and I'm all for any of that.
Depends on what you consider "dodging". If you mean he has to cast first then yes you can't dodge. But when you see a ghost getting in position you can micro your units around so they don't get hit.
I would say this is not dodging at all. That's positional play. Simply spreading out your units or backing off. Beneficial for the Protoss player? Yes. Is it micro? Yes. Will it get people cheering? Probably not.
It has everything to do with high rewards or lack thereof on micro techniques that are highly visible. Focus firing units with bonus to armour on armoured units is brilliant micro, but probably not incredibly exciting unless it's a heroic defence of few against many. It doesn't have to be because not all micro needs to be showy, but some things are just begging to be showy.
As a primarily Protoss player I would much rather see storm increase it's damage output while increasing its dodgebility. Right now it feels like I storm, the opponent doesn't even move and storm hardly has an effect on the army. Neat. Sure it did damage, but nothing showy. But if the difference between storm dodging and not dodgin was a dead bio group or a wasted storm- now that's exciting.
On July 24 2010 05:40 Lane wrote: This proves that people on these forums only respect people based on their post count, and how big of a post they type.
The OP is clearly Protoss biased, and gives bad info and suggestions.
- Banelings are already vulnerable to being killed early without dealing any damage. This gets worse and worse late game. Suggesting a nerf on top of this just doesn't make any sense.
- Fungal Growth does 36 damage over 8 seconds, not 80 like the OP says. It's not even enough to kill Marines. And he continues to exaggerate the power of this ability even more.
- He says Protoss can never dodge EMP, which is not true. Many of the EMP shots miss their targets all the time, even in the pro-level games. Because units sometimes can move out of the way while Ghost is trying to get in range to do the shot. The ability has already been nerfed. There is no need for more.
- He says more of Terran and Zerg units should die from a single storm, if not micro'ed, because currently there is not enough incentive to dodge it. Really? First of all, he doesn't even mention that Hydras die from a single storm (80HP) and are expensive units. He says it "cripples" them. That is incorrect, it actually kills them. Also, who says a single storm should kill most units. Why shouldn't there be an incentive for getting more than one HT?
- Adding cast time to Fungal Growth just so Terran bio can dodge it is also a terrible idea. Terran bio with the combination of Stim Pack and Concussive shells already prevents Zerg from running away from combat. It is only fair that Fungal Growth exists that can do the same, which by the way is more expensive and micro heavy in comparison. It's not like Terran bio is melee based. Fungal Growth does not even stop them from shooting.
Again, people should read and analyze a post before throwing empty praises at someone.
Okay first, the respect/posts part is not true. They do get priority but most of the respect is due to a long history of quality posts that got them to that number. I, myself do not have many posts (spent most of my time on TL without an account, just reading stuff) so I'll leave this up to others (reading the 10 commandments explains the idea behind the many posts → respect, check it out sometime).
The EMP dodging is referring to after the EMP has been launched. Sure the units can dodge before the ghost gets in range, but that isn't really dodging then because the shot hasn't been fired. The Terran player could just as easily cancel the EMP and aim it again. The problem is that if the ghost is commanded to shoot while in range, there's a little to no chance that you can dodge it.
As for storm, Plexa is not saying that it should be stronger. He's saying that it should be a situation where a gamer has to make the on-the-spot decision of "should I stay knowing that I can do more now, or should I run knowing that I'll survive and be able to do more later"
Same with the Fungal Growth. I'm not trying to argue balance here, and neither is the OP. His suggestions weren't meant to be isolated and you're treating them as such. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of readers read this in context of adding competitive play, excitement for watching, as well as more power to the gamer. Try rereading the post with a different attitude before you disregard everything and write a rebuttal.
Sure the post isn't perfect in writing (though IMO it's pretty darn good), but what a lot of people who disagree are missing is that the purpose for this being written is to introduce the "wow" factor that made SC:BW so much fun to play and watch.
Sorry if I came off as a bit rude; I tried my best to be critical but honest.
Doesn't matter if balance is not the issue. By trying to put on "wow" artificially like that you throw off balance anyway. All the changes combined are so heavily toss-friendly that anyone who agrees 100% with the post must be joking.
And it doesn't help any "wow" factor introducing harder to hit spells. There are a LOT of underused units in the game as is and the units that are used often are not used that well.
The game is not as clunky and is a lot smarter than BW. Units FEEL more fragile and the game FEELS faster. A lot of actions spent in BW can now be used elsewhere in SC2. Micro is a lot more delicate because of scale too.
And I have seen a lot of really really impressive SC2. Just saw one last night on Day9. Great use of a wide range of units (some of wich are considered bad by some users) and with LOTS of room for improvements from both sides (we all know what game that was right?).
But once again, I'm not trying to argue balance here, and neither is the OP. His suggestions weren't meant to be isolated and you're treating them as such.. Plexa, along with the collective community want to introduce that wow factor, but I doubt any of us would want that more than we want balance. These ideas can be introduced along with other things to maintain balance, if not increase it. Yes, the game is smarter and plays differently than BW, but what we're vying for is the interactive play that made the skill cap that much higher. The game that you're referencing was fantastic and I loved the variety of units, but I don't think it should take that much to have an amazing match.
In closing, I want to quote the OP:
On July 23 2010 18:28 Plexa wrote: The ideas presented here are just ideas. They are ideas that we feel have the right design philosophy behind them, but they are not restrictive in any way. The changes we suggested are designed to motivate players to micro and encourage control based counters to units as opposed to unit based counters.
EDIT: Just saw Saracen's post. I'll remove this if Mods feel it's unnecessary.
Do you really feel that the game mechanics are what really limits "microing" as is? The changes in the article are not meant to take in consideration game balance and whatnot, I get that. If you look at each one individually there are some that makes sense and there are others that doesn't.
Killed banelings doing less damage makes no sense at all. It isn't a problem AND MICROING THE BANELINGS ALREADY HAS A HIGHER REWARD. That's KEY. Most of the others suggestions might seem like good ideas, making timing your spells rewarding but I fail to see any suggestion in the original post that would reward Protoss in the same manner.
Making storms more powerful isn't a suggestion, it's asking for a buff. Infestors are underused anyway and in a lot of games you see people simply SCREW UP a LOT.
You guys are trying to fix and push the skill cap on something that no one has yet dominated. I do not care how one "feels" or one "thinks" about the game. We all can download and watch replays from those players who "feels" the game is somewhat easier to master and see a gigantic number of mistakes in every game.
You see a LOT of units killed for nothing, you see a LOT of harass fail for lack of micro. How many games did you see that a player has the capacity to strike on multiple bases at the same time without losing focus on one of the "fronts" and keep up with the macro? I have seen hundreds of casts and not ONE single game that happened with success.
And the unit variety to do that is there. You can drop with pretty much any race, you can nydus worm, reaper harass, banshee cloak, void ray harass, colossus harass, baneling bust an open expansion, raven harass, DT harass, helion harass, infested terran bombing and more.
There are tons and tons of strategies that are not explored and even the "pros" display some very poor micro most of the times. How many times have you seen a proper use of blinking stalkers? You can blink out of focus fire so fast that it really screws up the enemy AI. All we see from 99,9% of the players is the "something" ball, one control group army.
It really surprises me how one can complain about lack of micro if they can't micro what they have properly.
I absolutely agree that the total micro potential has not be explored and I'm sure everyine else would agree. However, the type of micro you are describing in not the same as Plexa's. Sure you can spread out your Protoss army so emp are not quite so deadly. But people won't cheer for that. People will cheer if they see the emp shoot out and the protoss player immediately retreats to take half as much damage. That's the 'wow' factor and I'm all for any
Depends on what you consider "dodging". If you mean he has to cast first then yes you can't dodge. But when you see a ghost getting in position you can micro your units around so they don't get hit.
I would say this is not dodging at all. That's positional play. Simply spreading out your units or backing off. Beneficial for the Protoss player? Yes. Is it micro? Yes. Will it get people cheering? Probably not.
It has everything to do with high rewards or lack thereof on micro techniques that are highly visible. Focus firing units with bonus to armour on armoured units is brilliant micro, but probably not incredibly exciting unless it's a heroic defence of few against many. It doesn't have to be because not all micro needs to be showy, but some things are just begging to be showy.
As a primarily Protoss player I would much rather see storm increase it's damage output while increasing its dodgebility. Right now it feels like I storm, the opponent doesn't even move and storm hardly has an effect on the army. Neat. Sure it did damage, but nothing showy. But if the difference between storm dodging and not dodgin was a dead bio group or a wasted storm- now that's exciting.
Think about what you said. You cast EMP, you see the ghost cast it and then you move your units so they don't get hit. Cool.
The way it works now is that you see the ghost coming and you know he isnt up to no good so you spread your units so they don't get hit. Cool.
You have to take the exact same action but what TRIGGERS is different. Watching it there is no difference.
So what IS the difference? Who gets screwed. Its easier for the terran to hit the EMP as is. If this change was made it would get easier for the protoss to dodge. Same thing with fungal growth.
toss player here agree with everything in this article except the forcefield comment, I find them of critical use in battle and totally one sided like you said. Only thing opponents can do is surround your army/engage in an open area to minimize the effect.
Also a great example of a wow unit is the warp prism IMO, since it has so much harass potential yet requires such high APM to use it and macro effectively.
On July 24 2010 05:40 Lane wrote: This proves that people on these forums only respect people based on their post count, and how big of a post they type.
The OP is clearly Protoss biased, and gives bad info and suggestions.
- Banelings are already vulnerable to being killed early without dealing any damage. This gets worse and worse late game. Suggesting a nerf on top of this just doesn't make any sense.
- Fungal Growth does 36 damage over 8 seconds, not 80 like the OP says. It's not even enough to kill Marines. And he continues to exaggerate the power of this ability even more.
- He says Protoss can never dodge EMP, which is not true. Many of the EMP shots miss their targets all the time, even in the pro-level games. Because units sometimes can move out of the way while Ghost is trying to get in range to do the shot. The ability has already been nerfed. There is no need for more.
- He says more of Terran and Zerg units should die from a single storm, if not micro'ed, because currently there is not enough incentive to dodge it. Really? First of all, he doesn't even mention that Hydras die from a single storm (80HP) and are expensive units. He says it "cripples" them. That is incorrect, it actually kills them. Also, who says a single storm should kill most units. Why shouldn't there be an incentive for getting more than one HT?
- Adding cast time to Fungal Growth just so Terran bio can dodge it is also a terrible idea. Terran bio with the combination of Stim Pack and Concussive shells already prevents Zerg from running away from combat. It is only fair that Fungal Growth exists that can do the same, which by the way is more expensive and micro heavy in comparison. It's not like Terran bio is melee based. Fungal Growth does not even stop them from shooting.
Again, people should read and analyze a post before throwing empty praises at someone.
Okay first, the respect/posts part is not true. They do get priority but most of the respect is due to a long history of quality posts that got them to that number. I, myself do not have many posts (spent most of my time on TL without an account, just reading stuff) so I'll leave this up to others (reading the 10 commandments explains the idea behind the many posts → respect, check it out sometime).
The EMP dodging is referring to after the EMP has been launched. Sure the units can dodge before the ghost gets in range, but that isn't really dodging then because the shot hasn't been fired. The Terran player could just as easily cancel the EMP and aim it again. The problem is that if the ghost is commanded to shoot while in range, there's a little to no chance that you can dodge it.
As for storm, Plexa is not saying that it should be stronger. He's saying that it should be a situation where a gamer has to make the on-the-spot decision of "should I stay knowing that I can do more now, or should I run knowing that I'll survive and be able to do more later"
Same with the Fungal Growth. I'm not trying to argue balance here, and neither is the OP. His suggestions weren't meant to be isolated and you're treating them as such. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of readers read this in context of adding competitive play, excitement for watching, as well as more power to the gamer. Try rereading the post with a different attitude before you disregard everything and write a rebuttal.
Sure the post isn't perfect in writing (though IMO it's pretty darn good), but what a lot of people who disagree are missing is that the purpose for this being written is to introduce the "wow" factor that made SC:BW so much fun to play and watch.
Sorry if I came off as a bit rude; I tried my best to be critical but honest.
Doesn't matter if balance is not the issue. By trying to put on "wow" artificially like that you throw off balance anyway. All the changes combined are so heavily toss-friendly that anyone who agrees 100% with the post must be joking.
And it doesn't help any "wow" factor introducing harder to hit spells. There are a LOT of underused units in the game as is and the units that are used often are not used that well.
The game is not as clunky and is a lot smarter than BW. Units FEEL more fragile and the game FEELS faster. A lot of actions spent in BW can now be used elsewhere in SC2. Micro is a lot more delicate because of scale too.
And I have seen a lot of really really impressive SC2. Just saw one last night on Day9. Great use of a wide range of units (some of wich are considered bad by some users) and with LOTS of room for improvements from both sides (we all know what game that was right?).
But once again, I'm not trying to argue balance here, and neither is the OP. His suggestions weren't meant to be isolated and you're treating them as such.. Plexa, along with the collective community want to introduce that wow factor, but I doubt any of us would want that more than we want balance. These ideas can be introduced along with other things to maintain balance, if not increase it. Yes, the game is smarter and plays differently than BW, but what we're vying for is the interactive play that made the skill cap that much higher. The game that you're referencing was fantastic and I loved the variety of units, but I don't think it should take that much to have an amazing match.
In closing, I want to quote the OP:
On July 23 2010 18:28 Plexa wrote: The ideas presented here are just ideas. They are ideas that we feel have the right design philosophy behind them, but they are not restrictive in any way. The changes we suggested are designed to motivate players to micro and encourage control based counters to units as opposed to unit based counters.
EDIT: Just saw Saracen's post. I'll remove this if Mods feel it's unnecessary.
Do you really feel that the game mechanics are what really limits "microing" as is? The changes in the article are not meant to take in consideration game balance and whatnot, I get that. If you look at each one individually there are some that makes sense and there are others that doesn't.
Killed banelings doing less damage makes no sense at all. It isn't a problem AND MICROING THE BANELINGS ALREADY HAS A HIGHER REWARD. That's KEY. Most of the others suggestions might seem like good ideas, making timing your spells rewarding but I fail to see any suggestion in the original post that would reward Protoss in the same manner.
Making storms more powerful isn't a suggestion, it's asking for a buff. Infestors are underused anyway and in a lot of games you see people simply SCREW UP a LOT.
You guys are trying to fix and push the skill cap on something that no one has yet dominated. I do not care how one "feels" or one "thinks" about the game. We all can download and watch replays from those players who "feels" the game is somewhat easier to master and see a gigantic number of mistakes in every game.
You see a LOT of units killed for nothing, you see a LOT of harass fail for lack of micro. How many games did you see that a player has the capacity to strike on multiple bases at the same time without losing focus on one of the "fronts" and keep up with the macro? I have seen hundreds of casts and not ONE single game that happened with success.
And the unit variety to do that is there. You can drop with pretty much any race, you can nydus worm, reaper harass, banshee cloak, void ray harass, colossus harass, baneling bust an open expansion, raven harass, DT harass, helion harass, infested terran bombing and more.
There are tons and tons of strategies that are not explored and even the "pros" display some very poor micro most of the times. How many times have you seen a proper use of blinking stalkers? You can blink out of focus fire so fast that it really screws up the enemy AI. All we see from 99,9% of the players is the "something" ball, one control group army.
It really surprises me how one can complain about lack of micro if they can't micro what they have properly.
I absolutely agree that the total micro potential has not be explored and I'm sure everyine else would agree. However, the type of micro you are describing in not the same as Plexa's. Sure you can spread out your Protoss army so emp are not quite so deadly. But people won't cheer for that. People will cheer if they see the emp shoot out and the protoss player immediately retreats to take half as much damage. That's the 'wow' factor and I'm all for any
Depends on what you consider "dodging". If you mean he has to cast first then yes you can't dodge. But when you see a ghost getting in position you can micro your units around so they don't get hit.
I would say this is not dodging at all. That's positional play. Simply spreading out your units or backing off. Beneficial for the Protoss player? Yes. Is it micro? Yes. Will it get people cheering? Probably not.
It has everything to do with high rewards or lack thereof on micro techniques that are highly visible. Focus firing units with bonus to armour on armoured units is brilliant micro, but probably not incredibly exciting unless it's a heroic defence of few against many. It doesn't have to be because not all micro needs to be showy, but some things are just begging to be showy.
As a primarily Protoss player I would much rather see storm increase it's damage output while increasing its dodgebility. Right now it feels like I storm, the opponent doesn't even move and storm hardly has an effect on the army. Neat. Sure it did damage, but nothing showy. But if the difference between storm dodging and not dodgin was a dead bio group or a wasted storm- now that's exciting.
Think about what you said. You cast EMP, you see the ghost cast it and then you move your units so they don't get hit. Cool.
The way it works now is that you see the ghost coming and you know he isnt up to no good so you spread your units so they don't get hit. Cool.
You have to take the exact same action but what TRIGGERS is different. Watching it there is no difference.
So what IS the difference? Who gets screwed. Its easier for the terran to hit the EMP as is. If this change was made it would get easier for the protoss to dodge. Same thing with fungal growth.
No there is a substantial difference in viewing and in player skill. And it has to do with the distinctiveness of what is being seen and reaction time. The case as it is now (which works btw, it just could be better) is a mass of Terran of units move in- somewhere are the Ghosts, Protoss spreads out hopefully and an emp goes off. Great, but not awe inspiring as it is indistinct and not requiring super fast reactions like the Bisu dragoon micro video. Essentially either you have time to minimize the damage because you can seem them coming (thus all the time in the world.) Or is already in range and thus there is no dodging. It's all or nothing
However, if the viewer can see the shot going off and the extreme fast reaction time, dodging the emp (or failing to). That's what creates the excitement. A greater skill level is opened up and the skill level is discernible and visually appealing to the viewer. This creates 'wow' moments and I agree that we could have more.
And yes if you change instantaneous cast to a timed cast that caster's race gets screwed. By definition it's not as good, but it's also not as interesting. So you compensate in other ways- amount of damage, area of effect, drop energy requirement. The current method does favour the caster because it's unavoidable, but it's also not as interesting as it could be.
On July 24 2010 05:40 Lane wrote: This proves that people on these forums only respect people based on their post count, and how big of a post they type.
The OP is clearly Protoss biased, and gives bad info and suggestions.
- Banelings are already vulnerable to being killed early without dealing any damage. This gets worse and worse late game. Suggesting a nerf on top of this just doesn't make any sense.
- Fungal Growth does 36 damage over 8 seconds, not 80 like the OP says. It's not even enough to kill Marines. And he continues to exaggerate the power of this ability even more.
- He says Protoss can never dodge EMP, which is not true. Many of the EMP shots miss their targets all the time, even in the pro-level games. Because units sometimes can move out of the way while Ghost is trying to get in range to do the shot. The ability has already been nerfed. There is no need for more.
- He says more of Terran and Zerg units should die from a single storm, if not micro'ed, because currently there is not enough incentive to dodge it. Really? First of all, he doesn't even mention that Hydras die from a single storm (80HP) and are expensive units. He says it "cripples" them. That is incorrect, it actually kills them. Also, who says a single storm should kill most units. Why shouldn't there be an incentive for getting more than one HT?
- Adding cast time to Fungal Growth just so Terran bio can dodge it is also a terrible idea. Terran bio with the combination of Stim Pack and Concussive shells already prevents Zerg from running away from combat. It is only fair that Fungal Growth exists that can do the same, which by the way is more expensive and micro heavy in comparison. It's not like Terran bio is melee based. Fungal Growth does not even stop them from shooting.
Again, people should read and analyze a post before throwing empty praises at someone.
Okay first, the respect/posts part is not true. They do get priority but most of the respect is due to a long history of quality posts that got them to that number. I, myself do not have many posts (spent most of my time on TL without an account, just reading stuff) so I'll leave this up to others (reading the 10 commandments explains the idea behind the many posts → respect, check it out sometime).
The EMP dodging is referring to after the EMP has been launched. Sure the units can dodge before the ghost gets in range, but that isn't really dodging then because the shot hasn't been fired. The Terran player could just as easily cancel the EMP and aim it again. The problem is that if the ghost is commanded to shoot while in range, there's a little to no chance that you can dodge it.
As for storm, Plexa is not saying that it should be stronger. He's saying that it should be a situation where a gamer has to make the on-the-spot decision of "should I stay knowing that I can do more now, or should I run knowing that I'll survive and be able to do more later"
Same with the Fungal Growth. I'm not trying to argue balance here, and neither is the OP. His suggestions weren't meant to be isolated and you're treating them as such. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of readers read this in context of adding competitive play, excitement for watching, as well as more power to the gamer. Try rereading the post with a different attitude before you disregard everything and write a rebuttal.
Sure the post isn't perfect in writing (though IMO it's pretty darn good), but what a lot of people who disagree are missing is that the purpose for this being written is to introduce the "wow" factor that made SC:BW so much fun to play and watch.
Sorry if I came off as a bit rude; I tried my best to be critical but honest.
Doesn't matter if balance is not the issue. By trying to put on "wow" artificially like that you throw off balance anyway. All the changes combined are so heavily toss-friendly that anyone who agrees 100% with the post must be joking.
And it doesn't help any "wow" factor introducing harder to hit spells. There are a LOT of underused units in the game as is and the units that are used often are not used that well.
The game is not as clunky and is a lot smarter than BW. Units FEEL more fragile and the game FEELS faster. A lot of actions spent in BW can now be used elsewhere in SC2. Micro is a lot more delicate because of scale too.
And I have seen a lot of really really impressive SC2. Just saw one last night on Day9. Great use of a wide range of units (some of wich are considered bad by some users) and with LOTS of room for improvements from both sides (we all know what game that was right?).
But once again, I'm not trying to argue balance here, and neither is the OP. His suggestions weren't meant to be isolated and you're treating them as such.. Plexa, along with the collective community want to introduce that wow factor, but I doubt any of us would want that more than we want balance. These ideas can be introduced along with other things to maintain balance, if not increase it. Yes, the game is smarter and plays differently than BW, but what we're vying for is the interactive play that made the skill cap that much higher. The game that you're referencing was fantastic and I loved the variety of units, but I don't think it should take that much to have an amazing match.
In closing, I want to quote the OP:
On July 23 2010 18:28 Plexa wrote: The ideas presented here are just ideas. They are ideas that we feel have the right design philosophy behind them, but they are not restrictive in any way. The changes we suggested are designed to motivate players to micro and encourage control based counters to units as opposed to unit based counters.
EDIT: Just saw Saracen's post. I'll remove this if Mods feel it's unnecessary.
Do you really feel that the game mechanics are what really limits "microing" as is? The changes in the article are not meant to take in consideration game balance and whatnot, I get that. If you look at each one individually there are some that makes sense and there are others that doesn't.
Killed banelings doing less damage makes no sense at all. It isn't a problem AND MICROING THE BANELINGS ALREADY HAS A HIGHER REWARD. That's KEY. Most of the others suggestions might seem like good ideas, making timing your spells rewarding but I fail to see any suggestion in the original post that would reward Protoss in the same manner.
Making storms more powerful isn't a suggestion, it's asking for a buff. Infestors are underused anyway and in a lot of games you see people simply SCREW UP a LOT.
You guys are trying to fix and push the skill cap on something that no one has yet dominated. I do not care how one "feels" or one "thinks" about the game. We all can download and watch replays from those players who "feels" the game is somewhat easier to master and see a gigantic number of mistakes in every game.
You see a LOT of units killed for nothing, you see a LOT of harass fail for lack of micro. How many games did you see that a player has the capacity to strike on multiple bases at the same time without losing focus on one of the "fronts" and keep up with the macro? I have seen hundreds of casts and not ONE single game that happened with success.
And the unit variety to do that is there. You can drop with pretty much any race, you can nydus worm, reaper harass, banshee cloak, void ray harass, colossus harass, baneling bust an open expansion, raven harass, DT harass, helion harass, infested terran bombing and more.
There are tons and tons of strategies that are not explored and even the "pros" display some very poor micro most of the times. How many times have you seen a proper use of blinking stalkers? You can blink out of focus fire so fast that it really screws up the enemy AI. All we see from 99,9% of the players is the "something" ball, one control group army.
It really surprises me how one can complain about lack of micro if they can't micro what they have properly.
I absolutely agree that the total micro potential has not be explored and I'm sure everyine else would agree. However, the type of micro you are describing in not the same as Plexa's. Sure you can spread out your Protoss army so emp are not quite so deadly. But people won't cheer for that. People will cheer if they see the emp shoot out and the protoss player immediately retreats to take half as much damage. That's the 'wow' factor and I'm all for any
Depends on what you consider "dodging". If you mean he has to cast first then yes you can't dodge. But when you see a ghost getting in position you can micro your units around so they don't get hit.
I would say this is not dodging at all. That's positional play. Simply spreading out your units or backing off. Beneficial for the Protoss player? Yes. Is it micro? Yes. Will it get people cheering? Probably not.
It has everything to do with high rewards or lack thereof on micro techniques that are highly visible. Focus firing units with bonus to armour on armoured units is brilliant micro, but probably not incredibly exciting unless it's a heroic defence of few against many. It doesn't have to be because not all micro needs to be showy, but some things are just begging to be showy.
As a primarily Protoss player I would much rather see storm increase it's damage output while increasing its dodgebility. Right now it feels like I storm, the opponent doesn't even move and storm hardly has an effect on the army. Neat. Sure it did damage, but nothing showy. But if the difference between storm dodging and not dodgin was a dead bio group or a wasted storm- now that's exciting.
Think about what you said. You cast EMP, you see the ghost cast it and then you move your units so they don't get hit. Cool.
The way it works now is that you see the ghost coming and you know he isnt up to no good so you spread your units so they don't get hit. Cool.
You have to take the exact same action but what TRIGGERS is different. Watching it there is no difference.
So what IS the difference? Who gets screwed. Its easier for the terran to hit the EMP as is. If this change was made it would get easier for the protoss to dodge. Same thing with fungal growth.
No there is a substantial difference in viewing and in player skill. And it has to do with the distinctiveness of what is being seen and reaction time. The case as it is now (which works btw, it just could be better) is a mass of Terran of units move in- somewhere are the Ghosts, Protoss spreads out hopefully and an emp goes off. Great, but not awe inspiring as it is indistinct and not requiring super fast reactions like the Bisu dragoon micro video. Essentially either you have time to minimize the damage because you can seem them coming (thus all the time in the world.) Or is already in range and thus there is no dodging. It's all or nothing
However, if the viewer can see the shot going off and the extreme fast reaction time, dodging the emp (or failing to). That's what creates the excitement. A greater skill level is opened up and the skill level is discernible and visually appealing to the viewer. This creates 'wow' moments and I agree that we could have more.
And yes if you change instantaneous cast to a timed cast that caster's race gets screwed. By definition it's not as good, but it's also not as interesting. So you compensate in other ways- amount of damage, area of effect, drop energy requirement. The current method does favour the caster because it's unavoidable, but it's also not as interesting as it could be.
Ghosts have more range then marines, they kind of "blend in" but have range 6 on EMPs. A stalker has 10 sight, more than enough to spot a ghost coming in a "normal" situation. You can SEE the AOE of the spell if it hits or not. Upon viewing you can distincly see that a player microed his units out of the way to avoid that.
If the viewer can see the shot going off and THEN try to split, all we will see is the units getting off the way and the AOE effect missing.
The difference is that in a cast you see the ghost stop and the units move. That little bit of micro you would have to spend EARLIER you spend spend later. The problem is that both ways work. You can still dodge by splitting your forces earlier and screwing up the ghost range but you can choose to insta-split for the "cool" effect.
But ok lets say we put some cast times on. What about storms? Just "make them more powerful". Sure thing but put on some cast times. What about feedback? It has range 9. You can make a ghost useless with one feedback. Put some kind of way to clutch-dodge it. And force-field? They don't require much skill to be placed. Make them break if you place them on top of a unit. Or put some cast times on it so a zerg army can close in. Or even make it so you can burrow under it so you get reward for amazing micro.
As I said there are a lot of subtle things that are not yet fully explored and people are proposing to change the game to add layers of skills on top of something they do not yet master. People miss a LOT of the EMPs, FG and spells already.
On July 24 2010 02:11 ZlaSHeR wrote: Congrats on 20k, but I can't agree with almost all of your PvT ideas, since they vastly favor protoss. Those changes would not only screw up every section of the ladder but would just make engaging completely useless for terran. My mind can't comprehend how you think that it is fair that a charged voidray can kill 8 marines with ease. 400 minerals worth is destroyed by some 200/150 unit, that can be chronoboosted, flys, and cna just hit and run on mineral lines on almost every mpa, never losing any hp due to being faster than the marines.
Your ideas would make it so void rays have NO counter, and that using a cheap ass skill that already does so much against terran bio armies (terran has virtually no melee units, so guardian shield IS effective and doesn't need change). Playing TvP would be just as worthless as it was in the first 5 patches.
Just so you know, a voidray is 250/150 which I consider to me much more costly than 400 minerals worth of marines. Also even with fazing there a charged voidray cannot kill 8 marines unless the Terran player just suicides them or the Protoss player has crazy handspeed. It becomes even more impossible if the Terran has researched either combat shields or stims, which will make the marines faster than the voidray. I also found it weird that you put "can be chronoboosted" in your argument when marines and vikings can be pumped "through a reactor." Just saying...
On July 24 2010 18:08 lovewithlea wrote: just ignore those who can't comprehend the meaning of this.
let them think you want to nerf banelings and fungal growth and buffing storm.
keeping discussions up that ain't connected with the actual topic won't bring us anywhere
They are connected with the actual topic though. We want both the community and blizzard to understand what we mean by all these suggestions. If Blizzard miss-interpreted us then the changes wanted so badly in here won't even come true and many of the things we don't want will come true. We need for Blizzard and the whole community to understand about the "wow" factor that is needed in SC2 and was in Brood War. If the "wow" factor hadn't been in BW then it wouldn't have had such spectacular games and wouldn't have the thousands of fans screaming and getting all excited over one tiny bit of micro management.
If there were no "wow" moments in SC:BW then there would never be epic games like this one:
Shield Battery stats incase you don't know them:
200shield/200armor costs 1 energy for every 1 shield regenerated. (not completely sure so you might want to check me on that) This building was a part of the "wow" factor in that game. It is rarely ever seen in use which is probably why it isn't in SCII.
Now tell me that the game shown wasn't impressive and made you respect the protoss player (tempest) more than if you hadn't seen that game.
Sat morning, hot mug of coffee, waking up after my quick jog and woots! some awesome TL content to read.
Nice article Plexa (and morrow for input/ideas) I really like your ideas for generating spectator improvement. Balance can always be adjusted, very few ideas are unworkable given time and play testing. I think you really hit a good point though, balance aside SC2 could benefit from more wow factor for the casual observer.
As a SC nut I'm highly amused by watching top level play in SC2 but I did have to explain a lot of what was happening to a friend the other night while watching the Day9-Razor tournie. Without my explanations of what was cool and why, I think she might have missed some of the awesome. For new viewers to this particular esport then more visual notifiers while at the same time more obvious ways of showing truly top level skill in play can only be a good thing.
Thanks again for the morning's thoughtful and mind engaging entertainment
On July 24 2010 05:40 Lane wrote: This proves that people on these forums only respect people based on their post count, and how big of a post they type.
The OP is clearly Protoss biased, and gives bad info and suggestions.
- Banelings are already vulnerable to being killed early without dealing any damage. This gets worse and worse late game. Suggesting a nerf on top of this just doesn't make any sense.
- Fungal Growth does 36 damage over 8 seconds, not 80 like the OP says. It's not even enough to kill Marines. And he continues to exaggerate the power of this ability even more.
- He says Protoss can never dodge EMP, which is not true. Many of the EMP shots miss their targets all the time, even in the pro-level games. Because units sometimes can move out of the way while Ghost is trying to get in range to do the shot. The ability has already been nerfed. There is no need for more.
- He says more of Terran and Zerg units should die from a single storm, if not micro'ed, because currently there is not enough incentive to dodge it. Really? First of all, he doesn't even mention that Hydras die from a single storm (80HP) and are expensive units. He says it "cripples" them. That is incorrect, it actually kills them. Also, who says a single storm should kill most units. Why shouldn't there be an incentive for getting more than one HT?
- Adding cast time to Fungal Growth just so Terran bio can dodge it is also a terrible idea. Terran bio with the combination of Stim Pack and Concussive shells already prevents Zerg from running away from combat. It is only fair that Fungal Growth exists that can do the same, which by the way is more expensive and micro heavy in comparison. It's not like Terran bio is melee based. Fungal Growth does not even stop them from shooting.
Again, people should read and analyze a post before throwing empty praises at someone.
Okay first, the respect/posts part is not true. They do get priority but most of the respect is due to a long history of quality posts that got them to that number. I, myself do not have many posts (spent most of my time on TL without an account, just reading stuff) so I'll leave this up to others (reading the 10 commandments explains the idea behind the many posts → respect, check it out sometime).
The EMP dodging is referring to after the EMP has been launched. Sure the units can dodge before the ghost gets in range, but that isn't really dodging then because the shot hasn't been fired. The Terran player could just as easily cancel the EMP and aim it again. The problem is that if the ghost is commanded to shoot while in range, there's a little to no chance that you can dodge it.
As for storm, Plexa is not saying that it should be stronger. He's saying that it should be a situation where a gamer has to make the on-the-spot decision of "should I stay knowing that I can do more now, or should I run knowing that I'll survive and be able to do more later"
Same with the Fungal Growth. I'm not trying to argue balance here, and neither is the OP. His suggestions weren't meant to be isolated and you're treating them as such. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of readers read this in context of adding competitive play, excitement for watching, as well as more power to the gamer. Try rereading the post with a different attitude before you disregard everything and write a rebuttal.
Sure the post isn't perfect in writing (though IMO it's pretty darn good), but what a lot of people who disagree are missing is that the purpose for this being written is to introduce the "wow" factor that made SC:BW so much fun to play and watch.
Sorry if I came off as a bit rude; I tried my best to be critical but honest.
Doesn't matter if balance is not the issue. By trying to put on "wow" artificially like that you throw off balance anyway. All the changes combined are so heavily toss-friendly that anyone who agrees 100% with the post must be joking.
And it doesn't help any "wow" factor introducing harder to hit spells. There are a LOT of underused units in the game as is and the units that are used often are not used that well.
The game is not as clunky and is a lot smarter than BW. Units FEEL more fragile and the game FEELS faster. A lot of actions spent in BW can now be used elsewhere in SC2. Micro is a lot more delicate because of scale too.
And I have seen a lot of really really impressive SC2. Just saw one last night on Day9. Great use of a wide range of units (some of wich are considered bad by some users) and with LOTS of room for improvements from both sides (we all know what game that was right?).
But once again, I'm not trying to argue balance here, and neither is the OP. His suggestions weren't meant to be isolated and you're treating them as such.. Plexa, along with the collective community want to introduce that wow factor, but I doubt any of us would want that more than we want balance. These ideas can be introduced along with other things to maintain balance, if not increase it. Yes, the game is smarter and plays differently than BW, but what we're vying for is the interactive play that made the skill cap that much higher. The game that you're referencing was fantastic and I loved the variety of units, but I don't think it should take that much to have an amazing match.
In closing, I want to quote the OP:
On July 23 2010 18:28 Plexa wrote: The ideas presented here are just ideas. They are ideas that we feel have the right design philosophy behind them, but they are not restrictive in any way. The changes we suggested are designed to motivate players to micro and encourage control based counters to units as opposed to unit based counters.
EDIT: Just saw Saracen's post. I'll remove this if Mods feel it's unnecessary.
Do you really feel that the game mechanics are what really limits "microing" as is? The changes in the article are not meant to take in consideration game balance and whatnot, I get that. If you look at each one individually there are some that makes sense and there are others that doesn't.
Killed banelings doing less damage makes no sense at all. It isn't a problem AND MICROING THE BANELINGS ALREADY HAS A HIGHER REWARD. That's KEY. Most of the others suggestions might seem like good ideas, making timing your spells rewarding but I fail to see any suggestion in the original post that would reward Protoss in the same manner.
Making storms more powerful isn't a suggestion, it's asking for a buff. Infestors are underused anyway and in a lot of games you see people simply SCREW UP a LOT.
You guys are trying to fix and push the skill cap on something that no one has yet dominated. I do not care how one "feels" or one "thinks" about the game. We all can download and watch replays from those players who "feels" the game is somewhat easier to master and see a gigantic number of mistakes in every game.
You see a LOT of units killed for nothing, you see a LOT of harass fail for lack of micro. How many games did you see that a player has the capacity to strike on multiple bases at the same time without losing focus on one of the "fronts" and keep up with the macro? I have seen hundreds of casts and not ONE single game that happened with success.
And the unit variety to do that is there. You can drop with pretty much any race, you can nydus worm, reaper harass, banshee cloak, void ray harass, colossus harass, baneling bust an open expansion, raven harass, DT harass, helion harass, infested terran bombing and more.
There are tons and tons of strategies that are not explored and even the "pros" display some very poor micro most of the times. How many times have you seen a proper use of blinking stalkers? You can blink out of focus fire so fast that it really screws up the enemy AI. All we see from 99,9% of the players is the "something" ball, one control group army.
It really surprises me how one can complain about lack of micro if they can't micro what they have properly.
I absolutely agree that the total micro potential has not be explored and I'm sure everyine else would agree. However, the type of micro you are describing in not the same as Plexa's. Sure you can spread out your Protoss army so emp are not quite so deadly. But people won't cheer for that. People will cheer if they see the emp shoot out and the protoss player immediately retreats to take half as much damage. That's the 'wow' factor and I'm all for any
Depends on what you consider "dodging". If you mean he has to cast first then yes you can't dodge. But when you see a ghost getting in position you can micro your units around so they don't get hit.
I would say this is not dodging at all. That's positional play. Simply spreading out your units or backing off. Beneficial for the Protoss player? Yes. Is it micro? Yes. Will it get people cheering? Probably not.
It has everything to do with high rewards or lack thereof on micro techniques that are highly visible. Focus firing units with bonus to armour on armoured units is brilliant micro, but probably not incredibly exciting unless it's a heroic defence of few against many. It doesn't have to be because not all micro needs to be showy, but some things are just begging to be showy.
As a primarily Protoss player I would much rather see storm increase it's damage output while increasing its dodgebility. Right now it feels like I storm, the opponent doesn't even move and storm hardly has an effect on the army. Neat. Sure it did damage, but nothing showy. But if the difference between storm dodging and not dodgin was a dead bio group or a wasted storm- now that's exciting.
Think about what you said. You cast EMP, you see the ghost cast it and then you move your units so they don't get hit. Cool.
The way it works now is that you see the ghost coming and you know he isnt up to no good so you spread your units so they don't get hit. Cool.
You have to take the exact same action but what TRIGGERS is different. Watching it there is no difference.
So what IS the difference? Who gets screwed. Its easier for the terran to hit the EMP as is. If this change was made it would get easier for the protoss to dodge. Same thing with fungal growth.
No there is a substantial difference in viewing and in player skill. And it has to do with the distinctiveness of what is being seen and reaction time. The case as it is now (which works btw, it just could be better) is a mass of Terran of units move in- somewhere are the Ghosts, Protoss spreads out hopefully and an emp goes off. Great, but not awe inspiring as it is indistinct and not requiring super fast reactions like the Bisu dragoon micro video. Essentially either you have time to minimize the damage because you can seem them coming (thus all the time in the world.) Or is already in range and thus there is no dodging. It's all or nothing
However, if the viewer can see the shot going off and the extreme fast reaction time, dodging the emp (or failing to). That's what creates the excitement. A greater skill level is opened up and the skill level is discernible and visually appealing to the viewer. This creates 'wow' moments and I agree that we could have more.
And yes if you change instantaneous cast to a timed cast that caster's race gets screwed. By definition it's not as good, but it's also not as interesting. So you compensate in other ways- amount of damage, area of effect, drop energy requirement. The current method does favour the caster because it's unavoidable, but it's also not as interesting as it could be.
Ghosts have more range then marines, they kind of "blend in" but have range 6 on EMPs. A stalker has 10 sight, more than enough to spot a ghost coming in a "normal" situation. You can SEE the AOE of the spell if it hits or not. Upon viewing you can distincly see that a player microed his units out of the way to avoid that.
If the viewer can see the shot going off and THEN try to split, all we will see is the units getting off the way and the AOE effect missing.
The difference is that in a cast you see the ghost stop and the units move. That little bit of micro you would have to spend EARLIER you spend spend later. The problem is that both ways work. You can still dodge by splitting your forces earlier and screwing up the ghost range but you can choose to insta-split for the "cool" effect.
The insta-split is precisely the sort of 'cool' effect that is so interesting. Insane reflexes create 'wow' moments. Being prepared and moving away as you see ghosts is useful and good to see, but not the sort of micro that's being advocated (although that sort of micro will always be useful.)
But ok lets say we put some cast times on. What about storms? Just "make them more powerful". Sure thing but put on some cast times. What about feedback? It has range 9. You can make a ghost useless with one feedback. Put some kind of way to clutch-dodge it.
I also said with storms to increase dodgebility- thus maybe increase damage per second but the drop the radius a bit and increase the total damage. I don't know- but right now it takes forever to deal full damage with storm, so the player can either weather the storm or move luxuriously out. I do not advocated more power with storm with out making it dodgeble, don't forget that part- and sure, caster time could be introduced to templars- the point is creating opportunities for awesome looking micro- Blizzard can balance the new version of the abilities as they have done in the past.
And force-field? They don't require much skill to be placed. Make them break if you place them on top of a unit. Or put some cast times on it so a zerg army can close in. Or even make it so you can burrow under it so you get reward for amazing micro.
For sure, the article mentions some ideas, I'm sure that there other ideas. The focus was not on nerfing Terran abilities, but looking at which ideas had potential for awesome game moments. If Terran abilities are nerfed with the ideas, obviously Terran would also have to gain some buffs. That's not the point. The point is this particular set of abilities have the potential for great moments in play.
As I said there are a lot of subtle things that are not yet fully explored and people are proposing to change the game to add layers of skills on top of something they do not yet master. People miss a LOT of the EMPs, FG and spells already.
Absolutely, but there are some things that could be improved upon to make the viewing even more exciting. (SCBW- the difference between storm dodging with hydras and not is night and day and extremely interesting to watch.)
On July 24 2010 05:40 Lane wrote: This proves that people on these forums only respect people based on their post count, and how big of a post they type.
The OP is clearly Protoss biased, and gives bad info and suggestions.
- Banelings are already vulnerable to being killed early without dealing any damage. This gets worse and worse late game. Suggesting a nerf on top of this just doesn't make any sense.
- Fungal Growth does 36 damage over 8 seconds, not 80 like the OP says. It's not even enough to kill Marines. And he continues to exaggerate the power of this ability even more.
- He says Protoss can never dodge EMP, which is not true. Many of the EMP shots miss their targets all the time, even in the pro-level games. Because units sometimes can move out of the way while Ghost is trying to get in range to do the shot. The ability has already been nerfed. There is no need for more.
- He says more of Terran and Zerg units should die from a single storm, if not micro'ed, because currently there is not enough incentive to dodge it. Really? First of all, he doesn't even mention that Hydras die from a single storm (80HP) and are expensive units. He says it "cripples" them. That is incorrect, it actually kills them. Also, who says a single storm should kill most units. Why shouldn't there be an incentive for getting more than one HT?
- Adding cast time to Fungal Growth just so Terran bio can dodge it is also a terrible idea. Terran bio with the combination of Stim Pack and Concussive shells already prevents Zerg from running away from combat. It is only fair that Fungal Growth exists that can do the same, which by the way is more expensive and micro heavy in comparison. It's not like Terran bio is melee based. Fungal Growth does not even stop them from shooting.
Again, people should read and analyze a post before throwing empty praises at someone.
Okay first, the respect/posts part is not true. They do get priority but most of the respect is due to a long history of quality posts that got them to that number. I, myself do not have many posts (spent most of my time on TL without an account, just reading stuff) so I'll leave this up to others (reading the 10 commandments explains the idea behind the many posts → respect, check it out sometime).
The EMP dodging is referring to after the EMP has been launched. Sure the units can dodge before the ghost gets in range, but that isn't really dodging then because the shot hasn't been fired. The Terran player could just as easily cancel the EMP and aim it again. The problem is that if the ghost is commanded to shoot while in range, there's a little to no chance that you can dodge it.
As for storm, Plexa is not saying that it should be stronger. He's saying that it should be a situation where a gamer has to make the on-the-spot decision of "should I stay knowing that I can do more now, or should I run knowing that I'll survive and be able to do more later"
Same with the Fungal Growth. I'm not trying to argue balance here, and neither is the OP. His suggestions weren't meant to be isolated and you're treating them as such. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of readers read this in context of adding competitive play, excitement for watching, as well as more power to the gamer. Try rereading the post with a different attitude before you disregard everything and write a rebuttal.
Sure the post isn't perfect in writing (though IMO it's pretty darn good), but what a lot of people who disagree are missing is that the purpose for this being written is to introduce the "wow" factor that made SC:BW so much fun to play and watch.
Sorry if I came off as a bit rude; I tried my best to be critical but honest.
Doesn't matter if balance is not the issue. By trying to put on "wow" artificially like that you throw off balance anyway. All the changes combined are so heavily toss-friendly that anyone who agrees 100% with the post must be joking.
And it doesn't help any "wow" factor introducing harder to hit spells. There are a LOT of underused units in the game as is and the units that are used often are not used that well.
The game is not as clunky and is a lot smarter than BW. Units FEEL more fragile and the game FEELS faster. A lot of actions spent in BW can now be used elsewhere in SC2. Micro is a lot more delicate because of scale too.
And I have seen a lot of really really impressive SC2. Just saw one last night on Day9. Great use of a wide range of units (some of wich are considered bad by some users) and with LOTS of room for improvements from both sides (we all know what game that was right?).
But once again, I'm not trying to argue balance here, and neither is the OP. His suggestions weren't meant to be isolated and you're treating them as such.. Plexa, along with the collective community want to introduce that wow factor, but I doubt any of us would want that more than we want balance. These ideas can be introduced along with other things to maintain balance, if not increase it. Yes, the game is smarter and plays differently than BW, but what we're vying for is the interactive play that made the skill cap that much higher. The game that you're referencing was fantastic and I loved the variety of units, but I don't think it should take that much to have an amazing match.
In closing, I want to quote the OP:
On July 23 2010 18:28 Plexa wrote: The ideas presented here are just ideas. They are ideas that we feel have the right design philosophy behind them, but they are not restrictive in any way. The changes we suggested are designed to motivate players to micro and encourage control based counters to units as opposed to unit based counters.
EDIT: Just saw Saracen's post. I'll remove this if Mods feel it's unnecessary.
Do you really feel that the game mechanics are what really limits "microing" as is? The changes in the article are not meant to take in consideration game balance and whatnot, I get that. If you look at each one individually there are some that makes sense and there are others that doesn't.
Killed banelings doing less damage makes no sense at all. It isn't a problem AND MICROING THE BANELINGS ALREADY HAS A HIGHER REWARD. That's KEY. Most of the others suggestions might seem like good ideas, making timing your spells rewarding but I fail to see any suggestion in the original post that would reward Protoss in the same manner.
Making storms more powerful isn't a suggestion, it's asking for a buff. Infestors are underused anyway and in a lot of games you see people simply SCREW UP a LOT.
You guys are trying to fix and push the skill cap on something that no one has yet dominated. I do not care how one "feels" or one "thinks" about the game. We all can download and watch replays from those players who "feels" the game is somewhat easier to master and see a gigantic number of mistakes in every game.
You see a LOT of units killed for nothing, you see a LOT of harass fail for lack of micro. How many games did you see that a player has the capacity to strike on multiple bases at the same time without losing focus on one of the "fronts" and keep up with the macro? I have seen hundreds of casts and not ONE single game that happened with success.
And the unit variety to do that is there. You can drop with pretty much any race, you can nydus worm, reaper harass, banshee cloak, void ray harass, colossus harass, baneling bust an open expansion, raven harass, DT harass, helion harass, infested terran bombing and more.
There are tons and tons of strategies that are not explored and even the "pros" display some very poor micro most of the times. How many times have you seen a proper use of blinking stalkers? You can blink out of focus fire so fast that it really screws up the enemy AI. All we see from 99,9% of the players is the "something" ball, one control group army.
It really surprises me how one can complain about lack of micro if they can't micro what they have properly.
I absolutely agree that the total micro potential has not be explored and I'm sure everyine else would agree. However, the type of micro you are describing in not the same as Plexa's. Sure you can spread out your Protoss army so emp are not quite so deadly. But people won't cheer for that. People will cheer if they see the emp shoot out and the protoss player immediately retreats to take half as much damage. That's the 'wow' factor and I'm all for any
Depends on what you consider "dodging". If you mean he has to cast first then yes you can't dodge. But when you see a ghost getting in position you can micro your units around so they don't get hit.
I would say this is not dodging at all. That's positional play. Simply spreading out your units or backing off. Beneficial for the Protoss player? Yes. Is it micro? Yes. Will it get people cheering? Probably not.
It has everything to do with high rewards or lack thereof on micro techniques that are highly visible. Focus firing units with bonus to armour on armoured units is brilliant micro, but probably not incredibly exciting unless it's a heroic defence of few against many. It doesn't have to be because not all micro needs to be showy, but some things are just begging to be showy.
As a primarily Protoss player I would much rather see storm increase it's damage output while increasing its dodgebility. Right now it feels like I storm, the opponent doesn't even move and storm hardly has an effect on the army. Neat. Sure it did damage, but nothing showy. But if the difference between storm dodging and not dodgin was a dead bio group or a wasted storm- now that's exciting.
Think about what you said. You cast EMP, you see the ghost cast it and then you move your units so they don't get hit. Cool.
The way it works now is that you see the ghost coming and you know he isnt up to no good so you spread your units so they don't get hit. Cool.
You have to take the exact same action but what TRIGGERS is different. Watching it there is no difference.
So what IS the difference? Who gets screwed. Its easier for the terran to hit the EMP as is. If this change was made it would get easier for the protoss to dodge. Same thing with fungal growth.
No there is a substantial difference in viewing and in player skill. And it has to do with the distinctiveness of what is being seen and reaction time. The case as it is now (which works btw, it just could be better) is a mass of Terran of units move in- somewhere are the Ghosts, Protoss spreads out hopefully and an emp goes off. Great, but not awe inspiring as it is indistinct and not requiring super fast reactions like the Bisu dragoon micro video. Essentially either you have time to minimize the damage because you can seem them coming (thus all the time in the world.) Or is already in range and thus there is no dodging. It's all or nothing
However, if the viewer can see the shot going off and the extreme fast reaction time, dodging the emp (or failing to). That's what creates the excitement. A greater skill level is opened up and the skill level is discernible and visually appealing to the viewer. This creates 'wow' moments and I agree that we could have more.
And yes if you change instantaneous cast to a timed cast that caster's race gets screwed. By definition it's not as good, but it's also not as interesting. So you compensate in other ways- amount of damage, area of effect, drop energy requirement. The current method does favour the caster because it's unavoidable, but it's also not as interesting as it could be.
Ghosts have more range then marines, they kind of "blend in" but have range 6 on EMPs. A stalker has 10 sight, more than enough to spot a ghost coming in a "normal" situation. You can SEE the AOE of the spell if it hits or not. Upon viewing you can distincly see that a player microed his units out of the way to avoid that.
If the viewer can see the shot going off and THEN try to split, all we will see is the units getting off the way and the AOE effect missing.
The difference is that in a cast you see the ghost stop and the units move. That little bit of micro you would have to spend EARLIER you spend spend later. The problem is that both ways work. You can still dodge by splitting your forces earlier and screwing up the ghost range but you can choose to insta-split for the "cool" effect.
The insta-split is precisely the sort of 'cool' effect that is so interesting. Insane reflexes create 'wow' moments. Being prepared and moving away as you see ghosts is useful and good to see, but not the sort of micro that's being advocated (although that sort of micro will always be useful.)
But ok lets say we put some cast times on. What about storms? Just "make them more powerful". Sure thing but put on some cast times. What about feedback? It has range 9. You can make a ghost useless with one feedback. Put some kind of way to clutch-dodge it.
I also said with storms to increase dodgebility- thus maybe increase damage per second but the drop the radius a bit and increase the total damage. I don't know- but right now it takes forever to deal full damage with storm, so the player can either weather the storm or move luxuriously out. I do not advocated more power with storm with out making it dodgeble, don't forget that part- and sure, caster time could be introduced to templars- the point is creating opportunities for awesome looking micro- Blizzard can balance the new version of the abilities as they have done in the past.
And force-field? They don't require much skill to be placed. Make them break if you place them on top of a unit. Or put some cast times on it so a zerg army can close in. Or even make it so you can burrow under it so you get reward for amazing micro.
For sure, the article mentions some ideas, I'm sure that there other ideas. The focus was not on nerfing Terran abilities, but looking at which ideas had potential for awesome game moments. If Terran abilities are nerfed with the ideas, obviously Terran would also have to gain some buffs. That's not the point. The point is this particular set of abilities have the potential for great moments in play.
As I said there are a lot of subtle things that are not yet fully explored and people are proposing to change the game to add layers of skills on top of something they do not yet master. People miss a LOT of the EMPs, FG and spells already.
Absolutely, but there are some things that could be improved upon to make the viewing even more exciting. (SCBW- the difference between storm dodging with hydras and not is night and day and extremely interesting to watch.)
Hopefully you don't feel like we're ganging up on you, but I feel that it's absolutely essential that this topic is understood (props to Plexa, Morrow, and Saracen on hitting the critique dead-center). What we want is micro that has trade-offs that blur the line. We want decisions that players must make in an instant, as a reactionary, that can have a visible difference in a battle or situation.
Right now, the ghost's EMP shoots a lot faster than it's predecessor, the Science Vessel's. I think that's the best comparison I can give you. When I saw an EMP flying at me, sure I couldn't dodge the whole thing, but I could definitely try to move units on the outside away. And I would. Why? Because It meant those extra shields/energy that might just be enough to scrap up one more storm or something.
With storms right now, I feel like colossus are just easier/more useful. I know I'm wrong on that, but when it comes down to a battle, I see colossi mowing down units while a storm just kinda causes an animation that allows the other units to clean up. Most of the time it's a kill on a unit that can't escape or a damage on a unit that simply does more by not running away. Relating back to the sc1 predecessor, the zerg player would often times want to run their hydralisk out of a storm. We simply don't see that in sc2 unless the hydralisk are on creep or something. What the OP is asking for isn't a stronger storm. He's asking for situations where choices that aren't blatantly obvious have to be made. If it means storms being stronger, than that's what he's asking for. BUT he's also asking for units that are fast enough and have enough health to dodge out and for that choice to be worth it.
I agree force field doesn't take much skill and has a lot more potential than the thread lets on. While I don't agree that burrow is the answer, there is room for some change that would make force field less... influential.
As Falling stated, there's still plenty of other ideas, just look at how long it took to discover muta micro. The OP listed the "nerfs" and that's what some people are reading it as. What they're skipping is the "make up for the nerf by throwing in some buffs" that make these requests reasonable.
A lot of what we're looking for doesn't make a drastic difference in gameplay, but it does in viewing pleasure. Most of us will not ever get to play on the progaming scene or anything of that caliber (sorry guys ), but what we all share in common is a passion for watching amazing plays by insanely good pros. Yeah we have people missing spells left and right, but we're still in the beta where we lack that boxer-esque cloning (think medics with optical flare), nada's vultures, jaedong's mutas, bisu's goons, kal's shuttle/reaver (and movie to some extent), jangbi's storms, among a number of other players. The list goes on and on. We're here asking for more "wow" moments and micro-able tasks not because we believe that people have figured it out, but because we believe that people will figure it out and we want that skill cap to always just be out of reach. How fun is a game once someone has totally figured it out?
Even after 10 years, we still see S-ranked players with occasional idle workers, which just shows that there's always room to improve. While the bonjwa days were great (I was not fortunate enough to be a fan back then), the excitement was always about how the greatest player would win the game, innovate a strategy, or bring something new to the board. But it wasn't the same as the ridiculous back and forth games that make us jump and scream and dance.
Maybe it's too early to be asking for all of this. Maybe we need more time to adjust to the game. Yeah, there are plenty of things yet to be discovered. But how much more potential would be lost if we didn't bring these ideas to the table? Our goal is for the longevity of SC2, not for the impossible game that's full of mistakes.
nice read as usual here on TL, i hope blizzard not only reads this post (and all the previous one) but also takes the time to discuss it. Congrats for 20k post aswell, hopefully i'll catch up one day
On July 24 2010 06:24 Saracen wrote: For the last time (hopefully), Plexa is NOT favoring Protoss, or any other race. He's merely offering SUGGESTIONS to IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF THE GAME. He's NOT touching balance AT ALL. If his suggestions HAPPEN to favor one race over another, too bad! I'm sure if we, the community, came up with other legitimate suggestions that improved the quality of the game but happened to favor another race, he would wholeheartedly support them as well. It really frustrates me that the point of the entire article is going way above a lot of your heads when your judgments are so clouded by racial balance issues, which have NOTHING to do with the article.
well, it just so happens that every suggestion he gives would favor the protoss. the point of the article might be to promote gameplay, "wow" moments, etc., but that doesn't mean he "is NOT favoring Protoss." he clearly is. and that impacts whether or not his points are valid. i'm not saying we should dismiss his suggestions, but just also note bias. balance is more important to me than "wow" moments, and i believe it's also more important for the longevity of sc2.
but i guess this is a separate debate, so i digress.
Very nice read Plexa and as a BW advocate I agree with you 100% but there are still sooo many unexplored areas of the game to call out design flaw (in the way you describe it).
IMO when people think of WOW moment they often relate only to units/spells or skills of a player but they forget one fundamental piece that has always been in BW and should remain in SC2:
Maps.
As of now the 1v1 maps are too small, hell, I even think that Lost Temple should get an overhaul to broaden it's war-binded attributes (I played a lot of LT in my earlier years ). Judging from pro-matches of SC2 the most interesting and skill based games happen on decent sized 4 player maps OR on maps that eliminate rush tactics(Desert Oasis) So why are we seeing and getting used to these tiny 1v1 -I can get this first- style of gameplay which lacks versatility in chance progression of a match?! Only to edge on balance through beta I hope.
In BW every time a player had taken a step onto hot soil in the middle of outsider or given Fighting spirit a ceremony worthy of it's name by crossing that bridge outside of the nat *Everyone* knew to hold on tight to their adams apples because from here on out the creativity and "Wow!" would fly.
Anyways I'm not going to ramble on too much but as of now we shouldn't give too much worry to lack of wow activity in SC2, The balance of the game has evolved a fair bit, same as the mechanics, now respectively we should let the maps evolve too.
On July 24 2010 06:24 Saracen wrote: For the last time (hopefully), Plexa is NOT favoring Protoss, or any other race. He's merely offering SUGGESTIONS to IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF THE GAME. He's NOT touching balance AT ALL. If his suggestions HAPPEN to favor one race over another, too bad! I'm sure if we, the community, came up with other legitimate suggestions that improved the quality of the game but happened to favor another race, he would wholeheartedly support them as well. It really frustrates me that the point of the entire article is going way above a lot of your heads when your judgments are so clouded by racial balance issues, which have NOTHING to do with the article.
well, it just so happens that every suggestion he gives would favor the protoss. the point of the article might be to promote gameplay, "wow" moments, etc., but that doesn't mean he "is NOT favoring Protoss." he clearly is. and that impacts whether or not his points are valid. i'm not saying we should dismiss his suggestions, but just also note bias. balance is more important to me than "wow" moments, and i believe it's also more important for the longevity of sc2.
but i guess this is a separate debate, so i digress.
Orly? So, if the game is boring as hell, no one at all cares to watch it, and no one at all enjoys playing it, but at least its balanced, then it will live for a long time? It should be obvious why that isn't true. If people don't care about the game, then it dies. Balance is an issued addressed after the game is made fun and entertaining (since balance is almost always a work in progress). And "Wow" moments directly refer to the parts of the game that make it fun to play, and fun to watch.
If those "buffs" to Protoss make the game overall more entertaining, then so be it. Stop thinking about those changes occuring in a vacuum, without any other possible changes to counter balance it. Its been said a million times in this thread: This thread isn't about balance.
On July 24 2010 06:24 Saracen wrote: For the last time (hopefully), Plexa is NOT favoring Protoss, or any other race. He's merely offering SUGGESTIONS to IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF THE GAME. He's NOT touching balance AT ALL. If his suggestions HAPPEN to favor one race over another, too bad! I'm sure if we, the community, came up with other legitimate suggestions that improved the quality of the game but happened to favor another race, he would wholeheartedly support them as well. It really frustrates me that the point of the entire article is going way above a lot of your heads when your judgments are so clouded by racial balance issues, which have NOTHING to do with the article.
well, it just so happens that every suggestion he gives would favor the protoss. the point of the article might be to promote gameplay, "wow" moments, etc., but that doesn't mean he "is NOT favoring Protoss." he clearly is. and that impacts whether or not his points are valid. i'm not saying we should dismiss his suggestions, but just also note bias. balance is more important to me than "wow" moments, and i believe it's also more important for the longevity of sc2.
but i guess this is a separate debate, so i digress.
If what I've seen is any indication, upsetting the balance would be nice, because as of right now the game isn't balanced. From the EU/NA rankings, T > P > Z. (If I recall correctly, the top three players are all Terran, and only 2 Zergs are in the top 10, the non-Idra one being exactly #10.) Then again, the Asian servers say that zerg is the most powerful, and someone is another thread made a convincing argument that Blizzard probably erred on the side of making T too powerful to promote the release of the T campaign.
But yeah, regardless of the specific examples, I agree that with the OP's premise: SC2 needs a lot of BW's micro mechanics back. That's during-battle micro, not preparation-before-battle micro. Spreading your army about prior to engaging Ghosts w/ EMP can be called micro in a sense, but is no more the micro that we're talking about than not-sieging-on-top-of-your-own-mines (or alternatively, good spider mine placement across the map) is in BW. The kind of the stuff that happens in the heat of battle is what we want.
One suggestion for Psi Storm, that has already been suggested, is to make it build up damage over time. It does little to no damage initially, so that it doesn't insta-kill weaker units. But it also has a higher damage cap. A good player can save his marines from Psi storm. (Even if the marines only survive with enough HP's to be one-shotted, that still forces the P to waste more attacks on them while the Marauders get free shots off.) Conversely, a bad player could practically lose his Marauders under there. It also makes Psi Storm effectively a delayed-cast spell like the OP suggested for Fungal Growth; a great P player could Psi Storm at an empty area, placing it so that its highest damage period coincides with the enemy walking into it (wherein it would insta-kill Marines and Zerglings again, etc.).
Maybe make the Guardian Shield two-way. It protects all units under it from all spells, but units under it also can't cast spells. This would include HT's with Feedback, or other Sentries from laying down additional GS or FF. Hell, this dynamic could even replace the GS' old function, which I see as badly overshadowed by FF. (This would GS a lot more game-changing and it should take up a lot more energy. 125 instead of 75 energy, maybe.) And of course, to fit under the OP's purview, the GS has to nullify the effects of any spells, not merely prevent them from being cast. We'd have to see a micro race to get an enemy spell cast before GS hits, not the enemy going into battle knowing that spells would be futile, adjusting his army composition likewise, etc.
Finally, reinstating overkill for ranged units is a must; this was a retarded feature that needs to go.
this post started off good and ended up annoying me. i agree that void rays are a well-designed unit that have a lot of depth. i disagree with virtually all your personal suggestions, perhaps with the exception of psi-storm - i think it should be more worth it to attempt to dodge one. i think i disagree because you are assuming that you can just throw exciting things into the game, and say "oh, we'll balance it later!" that's not how it works. deep games aren't made that way. if you balance an ability/unit/map/etc properly first, the skill of the player should be able to take whatever tool they are using to a higher level than you can, and THAT is what makes a wow factor.
EPT
), but what we all share in common is a passion for watching amazing plays by insanely good pros. Yeah we have people missing spells left and right, but we're still in the beta where we lack that boxer-esque cloning (think medics with optical flare), nada's vultures, jaedong's mutas, bisu's goons, kal's shuttle/reaver (and movie to some extent), jangbi's storms, among a number of other players. The list goes on and on. We're here asking for more "wow" moments and micro-able tasks not because we believe that people have figured it out, but because we believe that people will figure it out and we want that skill cap to always just be out of reach. How fun is a game once someone has totally figured it out?
). Judging from pro-matches of SC2 the most interesting and skill based games happen on decent sized 4 player maps OR on maps that eliminate rush tactics(Desert Oasis) So why are we seeing and getting used to these tiny 1v1 -I can get this first- style of gameplay which lacks versatility in chance progression of a match?! Only to edge on balance through beta I hope. 
