This article spawned out of a lengthy conversation with the one of the most successful players of Phase 2 - Mouz.Morrow. Morrow has a deep understanding of the game and an unparalleled knowledge of how units interact in each matchup. Many of the ideas here were originally brought up by Morrow and thus deserves a lot of the credit for this article. So thank you Morrow, and I hope you continue to contribute to the SC2 community long after the retail release! Let’s be honest, over the course of the Beta the majority of TeamLiquid’s articles on SC2 have been critical of what Blizzard has done with the game. Indeed, we often drew parallels between SC2 and BW to demonstrate the points we were trying to establish. Many of the newer folk remarked that SC2 is a new game, and that we should expect different things and that drawing parallels to Brood War was just TeamLiquid being too immersed in the past and blinded to the potential of SC2. What I’m going to discuss here does not rely at all on what happened in Brood War in the least. This is an article purely about Starcraft 2 using Starcraft 2 units, Starcraft 2 concepts and Starcraft 2 gameplay. Despite this, the points made will coincide precisely with what has been brought up before by other authors. In particular, you should brush up on Saracen's latest article to get a good grasp on the viewing potential of Starcraft 2 at the moment. By the end of this, I hope you’ll agree with the points raised here and hence the points we have tried to make throughout the Beta. In particular I hope Blizzard listens, so that the game will be as good as it can possibly be for release.
The original concept for the "Void Seeker" - the precursor to the Void Ray Source: Blizzard Entertainment
Easy to Learn, Hard to Master
When first revealed to the world, it was clear that the Void Ray was not an ordinary unit. The concept was simple, a unit whose damage output increased the longer it stayed focused on a target. Blizzard remarked that the Void Ray would be a unit that players would have to focus fire on early to remove from battle before it’s laser charged to full power and wrecked havoc on your army. From this concept, they claimed the game would require a lot of skill to master. Perhaps that claim was stretching things just a little bit, but the Void Ray has emerged as a unit with incredible depth and potential the likes of which is currently unparalleled in Starcraft 2.
It didn’t take long for Protoss to establish that the Void Ray was an exceptionally good air unit. Initially it found use against Zerg, since one uncharged Void Ray beats a Queen one on one. Zerg users raged at the enormous power that this unit had, but quickly realised that if you build more Queens dealing with Void Rays isn't so bad. Then it found use against Terrans since many were using Marauder heavy builds. Similarly, Terrans raged hard at the incredible power that the Void Ray wielded. Then they discovered that Marines effectively counter Void Rays in smaller numbers and that Vikings are also really good against them. Later the Void Ray had its range nerfed, and that nerf brought a massive decline in the Void Rays popularity.
I strongly believe Protoss players have given up on them too easily, but it's not hard to understand why they've become an unpopular option. The Void Ray is an incredibly expensive unit and is a glass cannon (by that I mean it can do enormous damage, but is very fragile). Further, the Void Ray is slow, has poor acceleration and requires constant attention since one slip up means you lose them. For most Protoss users, they just simply are not worth the trouble because they are too hard to use effectively.
But wait, did I just say they are too hard to use effectively? Does this mean that there is more depth to this game than BW elitists would have you believe?! It most certainly does.
A master is able to greatly annoy his opponent with Void Rays
The Void Ray is a unit which can become an exceptional unit in the hands of a master. A master is able to poke and prod at the Terran with his Void Rays and never let the him settle down, constantly harassing him until he is ready to move out himself. A master is able to harass the Zerg, abusing the lack of mobility of the Zerg’s Queens and later is able to restrict the Zergs map control by killing overlords and hidden expansions. A master is able to charge his Void Rays and keep them charged while wreaking havoc against his opponent.
The Void Ray embodies the Blizzard design philosophy in every respect – easy to learn, difficult to master. Such a simple concept behind this unit has created a rich dynamic that allows amazing players to clearly differentiate themselves from your average Diamond league player. Isn’t this the very thing we were worried would be missing from SC2?
The things I have cited so far are simply examples I’ve seen from both my own play and the play of others, like White-Ra. But the Void Ray is an even richer unit than we believe, with a vast amount of untapped potential. No one has mastered this it yet, and I don’t believe anyone will be able to for a long time to come.
Untapped Potential
Towards the end of the beta, FaZe discovered some truly remarkable aspects about the Void Ray. You can read up on the original thread here. FaZe discovered the concept of fazing, something which arises from the unique way the Void Rays deal damage. Since the Void Ray has no cool down on it’s attack, you are able to rapidly switch targets continuously and kill two units as quickly as you can kill one. The technique is best demonstrated through an example. Here are two videos demonstrating the technique
Initially, this trick only worked for the first level of attack. Blizzard thankfully realised that this trick adds enormous depth to the Void Ray and patched it so that the second and third levels can also use the fazing technique. This technique is excellent since it not only adds another way for a good player to separate himself from a lesser skilled player, but it also means a player has to decide between fazing and charging since by fazing you will be unable to charge the laser. Since charging is critical against some units (like the Queen for instance), this adds a really interesting dimension to Void Ray harass.
An obvious aspect of the Void Ray is that once charged, it’s ridiculously powerful. So Protoss players quickly began thinking up ways to get their Void Rays charged before going in to harass. One technique which is possible when the start positions have a close aerial distance is called charge juggling. The idea is to charge the Void Rays on one of your buildings, such as an assimilator, then as they move over to your opponents base you periodically make your Void Rays attack each other to keep them charged. This is an incredibly skilful technique as it requires precision timing, else you will do too much damage to your Void Rays, and requires amazing multitask to not fall behind in production. Charge Juggling can also possibly be used when Void Rays are going to enter battle – possibly juggling using a Hallucination to minimise damage against your own units. I once saw HuK trying to do this trick to harass a Terran, and well, he failed pretty miserably and remarked that he isn’t Korean. We all know HuK is one of the top Protoss, and if he is unable to do this trick, then clearly the skill gap is far from being reached.
Charge juggling is one way to charge your Void Rays before harass, but there are unexplored alternative ways as well. Things such as building a phoenix to sacrifice for charge before going into harass, researching hallucination and charging on a hallucination before going in to harass – these are all things which allow Void Rays to harass significantly better than being uncharged. With skilful control, two charged Void Rays can easily end the game right then and there. A true master of the Void Ray will be able to defend using Void Rays as well. He will see the attack coming, charge his Void Rays up on a Gateway, and when the Terran/Zerg attack comes the charged Void Rays will be able to rip through the attack. This is theoretically simple, but getting the timing right and executing the defence well obviously takes enormous skill.
After discussing the potential of Void Rays with Morrow one evening, I decided to test out one of the concepts he suggested – building a Phoenix to sacrifice for Charge then use some of the techniques above to wreck havoc in the Terran main. What was the result? See for yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ANGtKHxGdI Note: best watched in HD
Some important points to take out of this: my control isn’t even good, it isn’t hard to envision what a better Protoss like White-Ra would be able to do with this. This further demonstrates how Void Rays are an excellent way to demonstrate skill. Marines defeat Void Rays when they are not charged fairly easily, however when they are charged and with proper use of fazing, Void Rays don't just defeat marines. They dominate them. Further, combine fazing with a charged Void Ray on an SCV line and you have some damned effective worker harassment right there. Also, upon further consideration, simply building a proxy pylon would be far more effective than sacrificing a phoenix! Lastly, during this rather poor display of micro, my macro completely slipped – better players will be able to do both simultaneously and this is yet another way to show off skill.
Alas, it is very tempting to jump straight in and yell “OMG THIS NEEDS TO BE NERFED”. But that would be foolish. Morrow correctly points out that while Void Rays in the right hands are capable of enormous damage, with similar skill a good Terran player will be able to defend Void Rays. I’ve already shown you that fazing against Marines is a winning combination, but the Terran can split his marines up (i.e. fan them out) and that makes fazing really difficult to pull off. In this way, Terrans can more easily defend against Void Rays. Splitting your marines up, however, is a difficult thing since units in SC2 naturally clump together. I’m sure there are other techniques Terrans can apply to defend against Void Ray harass as well, but I’m no Terran player!
With proper defence, Void Rays just have to go home
The “wow” Factor
What we have here is an incredibly interesting dynamic building. Both sides of Void Ray harass in PvT are completely playable. The Terran has tricks and techniques at his disposal to neutralise the harass while the Protoss has tricks and techniques to make his harass more effective. The winner of the harass is completely determined by skill – and hence we have a genuine “wow” moment in SC2.
What is a “wow” moment? Morrow defines it as a unit, spell, ability, manoeuvre – whatever – whose effectiveness is completely determined by the skill of the player. The dynamic that Void Ray openings create in PvT qualifies as a “wow” moment since you can be absolutely blown away by how amazing a Protoss controls his Void Rays and equally you can be absolutely blown away by how well a Terran defends. Since you are unable to replicate this yourself, it makes you go “wow” and respect the player for his fearsome skills.
These “wow” moments are precisely the thing that draw in viewers and win players fans. TLO is only so popular today because he is able to execute crazy strategies and put himself into “wow” moments because of it. Think back to his epic game against Nazgul where his use of Nukes was mind blowing – that is precisely a “wow” moment. Starcraft 2 can only benefit from having more of these exciting moments in the game.
Unfortunately, the Void Ray is the only real “wow” moment possible currently in Starcraft 2. And given the recent range nerf and the decline in popularity because of the nerf, it’s possible that Void Ray openings will be completely forgotten all together and Starcraft 2 will lose out because of it. There are a few units which have the “wow” potential which currently aren't seeing use in Starcraft 2 or simple are not being used enough at the moment. The Raven's Seeker Missile is an example of a “wow” spell since it takes skill to aim it and skill to dodge it. The Colossus has some “wow” potential since it is a glass cannon, although it's potential is far more limited than a unit like the Void Ray. The Nuke is clearly a “wow” spell, but doesn't see use at the moment. Blink is an excellent example, but Stalkers are frail so ability is currently underused (outside of blinking into mains). Neural Paraite is quite clearly a “wow” spell and is the closest we have to the Void Ray at the moment. Neural Parasite turns the Infestor into a key unit in battle and that creates the “wow” factor.
It is easy to say that we've only had the Beta for 5 months and the game has not matured and hence we shouldn't worry. But this is simply not the case. It is easy to identify “wow” potential in units, as I just did, and it easy to understand the principles behind why they have “wow” potential. They are abilities and units whose strength is determined by the control of both players in the game - not just one. Applying this simple criteria, we are easily able to determine which units have that “wow” factor. Morrow and I strongly believe that there are a number of commonly used units and abilities that have the potential to generate “wow” moments with a few minor tweaks. By expanding these concepts to more commonly used units we are able to create a higher skill cap (through making the result of battles more dependent on control as opposed to unit composition) and increase the entertainment factor in Starcraft 2 matches.
This isn’t a balance discussion, this is a design discussion. And the design of a unit/spell is far more fundamental to the entertainment of viewers than how it is balanced. However, it is important not to have every unit creating “wow” moments, there needs to be some standard stuff as well. Typically one would expect that the more powerful an ability/unit is, the more control it should require from both sides. Maintaining a good balance between “wow” and standard is difficult, but I have every faith that Blizzard will pull through.
The awesome power of Fungal Growth annihilates a Terran army
First off, the Infestor is an example of a unit with amazing “wow” potential. Neural Parasite, as it stands, is a “wow” moment spell – it makes the infestor a prime target in battle and whomever has the most skill will be able to get the best of that situation. That’s excellent! However, fungal growth is not “wow” material in it’s current form. The reason is because it is cast instantly, and for this reason there isn’t anything the Terran can do except take the damage. To turn the Funal Growth into a “wow” spell simply add a cast time to the spell. Give it a nice animation and viola! You have a “wow” moment.
Adding cast time to the spell means that the Terran has an opportunity to react to the fungal growth – he can run and avoid it or he can try and snipe the Infestor before the spell has been cast. Equally, the Zerg player needs to be able to cast his fungal growths well and needs to anticipate where the Terran army is going to be when the spell is cast. This tiny adjustment adds so much to the excitement factor since you don’t know how well these fungal growths are going to come out, and since you will be able to see the casting animation the commentator will be able to hype up the move and turn it into a real “wow” moment. Not only does it add excitement, but it further builds the skill gradient without screwing with the balance at any level of play.
A timely EMP cripples the Protoss army
A very similar change to the way EMP works can also enhance the viewing experience. At the moment, EMP is virtually instant. If you pause it at the right time you can see a little tiny EMP missile, but the rate at which is travels means that no Protoss player will ever be able to dodge an EMP missile. As with fungal growth, EMP lacks a dynamic between players since at the moment it is just a point and click spell. Simply slowing down how fast the EMP missile travels so that it is feasible for a Protoss to dodge it (without good control) would turn EMP into a “wow” spell. It means there is a viable control based counter for the Protoss player while adding more skill to using the EMP ability. But there are other ways EMP could be tweaked as well.
The Guardian Shield ability fits the criteria of a “wow” spell, however it’s damage reduction at the moment is not significant enough for it to truly make the sentry a target in battle. Suppose that Guardian Shields were tweaked to block out EMPs. This would give Protoss have a viable way to negate the EMP through good control without changing the speed of the missile. For instance, if your sentries are all grouped together you won’t be able to cover your army effectively and EMPs will do major damage to the parts that aren't covered. Thus spreading your Sentries well will be critical in battle. This isn’t one sided control either, as the Terrans would be trying to remove the Sentries from battle and quickly laying down 3-4 EMP over the no longer shielded Protoss army. This turns the Sentry into a “wow” unit in the process and creates a really interesting dynamic in PvT.
Storm is one of the most powerful abilities in the game
There are other ways to create “wow” moments without adding delays and travel time to spells, and indeed for the High Templar that is necessary. Currently, Storm is no where near the “wow” spell that it could be. Unlike Fungal Growth or EMP, units are able to move out of the storm to avoid damage. The problem is, more often that not you don’t want to move your units out of the storm. The reason is simple, for Terrans there is little incentive to move since Marines die so quickly under storm it is practically impossible to save them. Marauders are too tough and with Medivacs are not going to die from a storm. Obviously avoiding a storm is still beneficial, but there is still a lack of incentive to move once the storm is cast. Similarly against Zerg, Zerglings die too quickly, Roaches are tough and immobile so why both running at all?
The key to making Storm a “wow” spell is balancing the damage output against unit health. There needs to be a unit that the Zerg or Terran have that dies if left under a storm, yet can easily move out of the storm and not die. So there needs to be a health component and a speed component to the unit. This is a little harder to implement than the other changes, but carefully balancing unit speed, health and storm damage so that there are units that Zerg/Terran need to micro out of storm drastically increases the richness of the game. It gives the Zerg/Terran an incentive to move out of the storm and equally means that the Protoss needs to place his storms well. In this way, you will be amazed through the perfect Storming/Storm dodging that the very best will be able to execute. This dynamic will turn Storm into spell which captivates audiences for years to come.
It should be noted that this dynamic already partially exists in the game. While on creep, Hydralisks fit the description I laid out above. They have sufficient speed to move out of the Storm yet leaving them in the Storm will cripple them. Obviously, this doesn't extend to when they are not on creep. Nevertheless, Terran completely lack this at the moment and hence tweaking things so that they do have this dynamic will only enrich PvT.
The baneling strikes fear into a Terran player's heart
The baneling is a unit that I feel Blizzard almost got right. The really unfortunate thing is that they made it so that the baneling always explodes and does damage. That way the viewer already knows what to expect and he knows that if the banelings get close then they’re going to do damage. Simply adjusting the baneling so that it deals less damage when killed changes this completely. It creates the tension and gives the other player a legitimate chance to minimise damage through good control. It means that the baneling becomes a unit whose effectiveness is determined by how skilled you are, as opposed to a unit you just right click into a battle and forget about.
The Force Field is a versatile spell capable of giving the Protoss a small edge in battle
Let's quickly go over some units and abilities which currently do not have “wow” potential and do not need it. The Force Field is an example of one sided micro – as in it’s strength is solely determined by how well you use it. Your opponent is completely helpless to defend against it, but that’s fine. This still creates a skill gradient amongst Protoss players and the other races have one sided micro abilities as well. Stim Packs are an example for Terran for instance – you’d be foolish to allow the other racers to counter Stim Packs (other than with other one sided micro abilities like Force Field) and using stim properly is a critical part of becoming a good Terran player.
The rationale behind these two abilities not needing “wow” potential is that they do not have such a profound influence on battle. Force Fielding well will give you an edge, but it will be a slight edge - not like a Fungal Growth which paralyses your units and deals 36 damage, that's a battle changing ability. By generalising this concept we can see other units/abilities which do not need “wow” potential - Point Defence Drone, Roach Burrow, Spreading your Creep well, Banshee harass etc. These elements need to be in the game, and should never be “wow” moment material to maintain the balance between “wow” and standard.
Time is running out
SC2 retail is about to hit the shelves and Blizzard really has done an amazing job at creating a game which is so well balanced and just so damn fun to play. The standard Blizzard philosophy “easy to learn, hard to master” has led to the creation of units with amazing potential. The Void Ray is a unit which is perfect in it’s design. Its effectiveness is solely determined by the skill of the controller and the skill of the defender. This dynamic is begging to be expanded to other units, and with a few minor tweaks a number of units can become units who generate “wow” moments. Not only does this increase the enjoyment for the viewer, but it also raises the skill cap and creates a richer game in the process.
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. To beat a dead horse, if we look at the Void Ray one last time; while a Turret does counter a Void Ray really well, spreading three marines out so that fazing is difficult is a better counter since it is more flexible. These are the kinds of counters that should be expanded to more units, such as the baneling, and hence create more “wow” moments in the process. There are a multitude of different approaches Blizzard can take, we just hope they start exploring them really soon.
Blizzard gives us the tools to work with, and though it is up to us to discover and use these tools to their fullest potential, we can't do anything if the tools we receive are second rate. The analysis presented on the design of certain units and abilities identifies what makes a successful and entertaining unit. We can't lay about for 4-5 years only to wait find out that the units identified here were faulty all along. They must be perfect right at release to ensure Starcraft 2 is a universally successful game. Right now, we see real and tangible ways that the game can be improved without messing with the balance of the game at any level. So really, is there a single reason why we shouldn't try to improve it?
In the end, things will only change if you make a noise. Throughout TeamLiquid’s critique of the Beta we have desperately tried to demonstrate that “wow” moments are a good thing for the game. This article has shown you that some of these moments already exist in the game, and that with a few tweaks we can have “wow” moments across all matchups. Here at TL we want the game to be as good as it can possibly be, and with these changes, we believe it will live up to everyone’s expectations. We can only cause change if you make a noise, and we really do not have much time left.
So TeamLiquid, will you?
Many thanks to Morrow, once again, for all his assistance in formulating the ideas for this post. Also big thanks to my practice partners: nujgnoy, Infinity21, Saracen, Monokeros and Corinthos who played many many games against my Void Ray openings and were a large part in formulating the initial ideas for this post. Special mention to nujgnoy for being my test subject for the Phoenix-sac! And lastly, thank you for reading!
This post also commemorates my 20,000th post on TeamLiquid and 6000th PM sent. Here's to 20k more!
Congrats on 20k! I like this piece a lot, gives a nice perspective on how the dynamic between two players can make or break how fun a game is to play and watch.
i was with you and going yah yah , wow, oh awesome, until:
Splitting your marines up, however, is a difficult thing since units in SC2 naturally clump together.
voids have greater range than marines (same range would be equally valid to my point). there's no way u can spread marines out enough to prevent fazing.
of course it will make it harder on the toss player physically b/c he has to be more accurate and take more time clicking, but ..... really? i suppose it will separate the noob fazers from the pros, but it's way easier to faze between split marines than it is to split the marines, especially since voids can back out, and the marines will have to be reseparated. way way way more micro for the marine user.
whoa holy shit void rays can do that!?!? but yeah, your exactly right : ) but im sure blizzard or the community will fix shit up and make it even more awesome than it already is, also im probably going to switch to protoss now : )
Splitting your marines up, however, is a difficult thing since units in SC2 naturally clump together.
voids have greater range than marines (same range would be equally valid to my point). there's no way u can spread marines out enough to prevent fazing.
of course it will make it harder on the toss player physically b/c he has to be more accurate and take more time clicking, but ..... really? i suppose it will separate the noob fazers from the pros, but it's way easier to faze between split marines than it is to split the marines, especially since voids can back out, and the marines will have to be reseparated. way way way more micro for the marine user.
The point is that it's playable. Spreading your marines doesn't prevent fazing - but it makes it a lot harder to execute (especially if the Protoss is trying to multitask). Making the void rays run is good as well, since it increases the likelihood that they will lose their charge (especially against worse players). And that's the key to the whole thing, both sides of VR harass are dependent on execution. Good players will be able to retreat and not lose their charge and still be annoying, whereas someone like myself may be able to get off some hits and runs before leaving and a terrible player will just run away.
On July 23 2010 18:53 figq wrote: No love for "Contaminate". But a great article nonetheless.
I don't feel like I can give a good assessment of that ability since I haven't had it used against me once, nor have I seen it used at all.
The Force Field is a versatile spell capable of giving the Protoss a small edge in battle
*small*? :p
And theres plenty of wow-effect in force field when used to block a choke or entire armies from certain areas which could easyli beat the actuall Protoss army but can't get to them.
I very much agree with the infestors fungal growth having a cast time so that good T's can dodge it rather than being plastered all over his army by default, which creates that nice tention we saw in SC:BW. "Will he be able to get this fungal off? He needs to flank well to get it off, send in the zerglings/ultras first to take the initial blow etc" "Oh nice EMP on that lone infestor, it didnt have time to fungal as it wasn't controlled quickly enough"
Force fields also needs needs more tention in its usage, its simply too easy and too strong to use atm. Just look at the recent top level PvZs, any good P with a good unit mix of stalker/sentry/collosi/zealot will completely demolish any Z army beacuse he'll simply be dancing back and forth between his force field walls and using his collosi to do all the dps.
The baneling mechanic that you suggested (doing less damage when killed) would change ZvZ a lot, but in a good way. It would make zergs decide to press x to cut their losses, or to continue charging for that massive group of lings or drones.
i agree with what the article is proposing, i only want to point out that if these changes happen in zerg (fungal, banelings), some others should happen in terran as well balancewise or else zvt will be too hard.
Holy fucking shit this article is so incredibly right on everything... blizzard HAVE to pay attention to this!
On July 23 2010 19:08 Titanidis wrote: i agree with what the article is proposing, i only want to point out that if these changes happen in zerg (fungal, banelings), some others should happen in terran as well balancewise or else zvt will be too hard.
the article isn't about changing the balance of the game, it was assumed that appropriate balance changes to the spells would be brought along with the proposed changes. And even more important than the practical suggestions, the principle behind the "wow" factor.
I agree with alot of what you said, however there is one thing I disagree with. You say it's very easy to find units with a potential wow factor, however it took 5 months to find the full potential of the Void Ray. I like to think that there are many units in SC2 atm who already have the ability to show as much depth and skill as the Void Ray does, we just haven't found them yet.
Void Rays are the new mutas! Seriously thou, I agree with 90% of this. Force Fields are much more game changing than stim (IMO), but harder to pull off well. I think forcefields will become much more effective once we start using maps with more open centers.
Hmm, Force Field is pretty mean against a Zerg army. It doesn't just neutralize, it destroys (and not in a way that's ever fun for me to watch). I wish it had been balanced with ideas similar to these (which is not possible at this point, it seems). Ultralisks stamping them out makes them better but Ultralisks are rare to see.
On July 23 2010 19:08 Titanidis wrote: i agree with what the article is proposing, i only want to point out that if these changes happen in zerg (fungal, banelings), some others should happen in terran as well balancewise or else zvt will be too hard.
the article isn't about changing the balance of the game, it was assumed that appropriate balance changes to the spells would be brought along with the proposed changes. And even more important than the practical suggestions, the principle behind the "wow" factor.
i know, it just didnt feel right not to comment this.
I agree with everything here 100%. Easy to learn and hard to master can give everyone what they want, from the noobs to the professional scene. Although it departs from a strategy game to more of a control game, that is what starcraft is; and its better off that way! Grats on 20k posts
I agree with everything in this article. I have been saying for a long time that EMP/Fungal needs a change to be dodgble. The strange thing is that they both used to be projectiles you could dodge so I don't think blizzard will revert back since they intentionally made them this way.
This was a brilliant and well written article. Congrats on you 20k posts Plexa If Blizzard does not alter spell etc. as you suggest, I hope us players will find more "wow" usages for different units in the time to come.
On July 23 2010 18:42 waffling1 wrote: i was with you and going yah yah , wow, oh awesome, until:
Splitting your marines up, however, is a difficult thing since units in SC2 naturally clump together.
voids have greater range than marines (same range would be equally valid to my point). there's no way u can spread marines out enough to prevent fazing.
of course it will make it harder on the toss player physically b/c he has to be more accurate and take more time clicking, but ..... really? i suppose it will separate the noob fazers from the pros, but it's way easier to faze between split marines than it is to split the marines, especially since voids can back out, and the marines will have to be reseparated. way way way more micro for the marine user.
The point is that it's playable. Spreading your marines doesn't prevent fazing - but it makes it a lot harder to execute (especially if the Protoss is trying to multitask). Making the void rays run is good as well, since it increases the likelihood that they will lose their charge (especially against worse players). And that's the key to the whole thing, both sides of VR harass are dependent on execution. Good players will be able to retreat and not lose their charge and still be annoying, whereas someone like myself may be able to get off some hits and runs before leaving and a terrible player will just run away.
curious, how much spreading from the terran player do u think will be enough to be viable? it just seems to me that the terran micro of spreading units is wayy more demanding than the void ray micro of fazing.
is it ok as long as the nearest two marines are not side by side, or does it require that not a single marine is side by side with another?
what do u think about for a counter: 1 viking + marines defense against viod rays? 111 is quite standard now, and the the range combination of the viking to land hits, and then have a wall of marines threaten with damage before the voids can land shots on the vikings might be viable?
but seirously, the entire article is so on the money. forward it to a balance design staff member...
I 100 percent agree. Thanks for putting into words/examples/videos what needed to be said. I hope Blizzard reads this and really thinks about what is being said here. Theyve been really good about listening so far. Id rather have them change these few small things and then work their way backwards tweaking any needed balance from there instead of leaving things how they are and hoping it "all works out later". The best thing about these ideas are mainly that they are completely true (which is always good har har!), but that they dont call for massive changes like additional units etc. And noobs wouldnt even really notice the difference. Its not like a huge change such as a new spell etc. It just makes some of the spells etc work in a way that makes things come down to a critical skill-based moment more. And whats great is it really makes it more interesting to watch and play in fact, not theory. There is no way these changes (or similar ones) wont improve the game.
Excellent article. Dustin if you are reading think long and hard about whats being said here.
But: If the shield could block EMP, going for ghosts somewhat early in pvt would be too risky, it costs too much for the terran if it can be that easily blocked. To make a EMP blocking shield you would have to make sentries more expensive , or add a upgrade to do it. Most likely both. But maybe that would be a welcomed upgrade to the pretty much useless twilight council...
I would like something like what you said with fungal growth. But I think it would be fair to add some more benefit from it if its gonna be a delay on it, like making it so that units that walk into the area where it was casted, right after cast, gets stuck too.
And if theyre gonna make storm stronger as you suggest, they would have to add some cast time on that too. And I still think it would break the game for many beginners. Seeing all your marauders tanks and medivacs gets melted to a few HT because you didnt manage to react to the few dots on the minimap would break many a terran beginners heart.
And the fazing on the void rays are awesome! Had no idea about that :o
Nice read and gratz on 20k posts! I am curious how the game would play if they were to implement all your changes right now. It was well written, hope they read this
God I love the Void Rays, also, so cool that the 'inventor' got to name the trick 'Fazing', I hope we see more neat tricks with various units in the future.
This article is amazing, if all of this stuff gets implemented I have no doubt that SC2 can become a better (to watch) game than BW. Of course, BW will always hold a special place in my heart <3
Edit: this should be a final edit. Plexa, you're outdone yourself <3 <3 <3
Edit2: But before it is an FE it needs spell/grammar checking. I noticed a few errors myself but I'm too drunk to remember them right now.
This article is very constructive and written with a great amount of clarity, definitely a high-quality read. While I do think that Blizzard does have more time to make changes, I really think that this article should be brought to their attention sooner rather than later.
Never has an article made so much sense. Blizzard needs to listen and implement all your suggested changes to spells. I love Starcraft as it is but it can still be so much better.
A thing that I think is missing here is "overfire". Don't you think it would be nice to see some well placed infested terran from a burrowed infestor right in the middle of some tanks which annihilate themselves? This would be, what you call, a "wow" effect. Also it would add some more tactics to it. Some suicide medivacs with one marine or something could do the same. What I think would be some super nice move, would be to just warp in a zealot with your proxy pylon and see the terran army die :D Also it would require more skill to watch out that your tanks actually DON'T kill themselves.
This is a wonderfully written article. The ideas really don't change much for newer players since they don't often micro. I do have a similar concern about sentries and the possibility of blocking EMP.
I wouldn't go to the extreme and say they need to make that into an upgrade like a previous poster mentionned, but maybe they should make it that EMP and forcefield are closer to the same size so it's mostly impossible for a toss to completely block an EMP without 2 sentries that are spread out doing forcefield.
I really hope to see Blizzard place in more "wow" factors like you said. STORMMUU lol
That was a really good and well thought out post. I like the idea of making some units have more micro intensive abilities, but also stronger abilities. I hope blizzard listens.
I'm very impressed with this. What really hit me was the idea of the delay on fungal. Playing Zerg, I just felt that the spell was so boring, and it's because it's so "point-click-instant results." Absolutely no skill involved from either player.
I'm sure there's no way they're changing anything more before the game ships, but I sincerely hope they consider this argument for the first patch.
On July 23 2010 19:14 Plexa wrote: But wait, did I just say they are too hard to use effectively? Does this mean that there is more depth to this game than BW elitists would have you believe?! It most certainly does.
This article is great, hopefully Blizzard will implement this stuff! I really liked the suggestion about Sentries vs EMP. EMP is such an easy mode "no more Storm+100 instant damage" spell vs Protoss. I had just wanted Feedback's range increased to deal with it, but the Guardian Shield blocking EMP is a really good idea. If they did alot more stuff with Guardian Shield blocking spells like that, with some proper balancing that would be a good mechanic.
Like lets say Guardian Shield could block other spells as well, like Fungal Growth or something. That alone would increase the spell's usefulness. If the mana cost is made just right, there could be tension between using Guardian force for anti-Spells, and using Force Field to keep units away. IMO the cost of a Sentry should probably be increased if these things happen, but I think it would be great. And it would force the otherside to have to time their spells right, and snipe the sentries.
I play random and as P I use void rays a lot. That said I still think they are OP. They are like carriers in sc1 but moved to T2. They can be countered. But the counter takes just too much dedication too early on considering the efforts it took to tech to it: it is not balanced. "Fazing" or what ever it is called will make it even more overpowered once people get good enough to use it properly.The skill in sc never made any unit make twice (it can be even 3-4 times more if someone is that good with VRs) more damage without the other being able to do something about it. Yes someone could micro a vulture vs slowlings but there were things a zerg could do to prevent it. How do you prevent fazing? Spreading out is just a bad joke. People will still be able to do it unless every unit is half the screan away which is another bad joke. And that trick with phoenix is just really a BO win if the terran went too easy on anti-air or the example of void rays being OP... there is no skill sacrificing a phoenix as there is no skill in making a seige tank upgrade: you just have to know the game good enough to make use of it (nice trick btw).
Force Fielding well will give you an edge, but it will be a slight edge - not like a Fungal Growth which paralyses your units and deals a whopping 80 damage, that's a battle changing ability.
fungal growth doesnt do 80 damage, in fact it doesnt deal half as much, it deals 36 dmg. other than that a decent article
Very interesting read and a lot of truth in there. Love the idea of force field blocking EMP for example. And theory aside, I will definitely try a void ray opening with charging up on a proxy pylon vs terran - might just give me an edge over those pesky marines. :D
Just three minor objections:
- I'm not under the impression that the popularity of the VR dropped much because of the range nerf, and if it did, it dropped to a healthy level. I see a lot of VR use in tourneys as well as on ladder. More VR use could be too much.
- Force Field no deciding factor? Too often I've seen a P force fielding in an army of 50ish Hydralisks (or even IdrAlisks) and just burning them up like nothing with Collossi to agree with that. Also it works wonders against an otherwise undefeatable T bioball to break it up into small chunks with FF. Considering how important army positioning is and that you can totally mess up your opponent's positioning with FF, I'd say it is a very deciding factor in many, many games.
- I'm also not sure what you mean by saying your suggestions wouldn't mess with balance, since making EMP dodgeable would obviously weaken T, making storm dodgeable would weaken P and so on.
I would be very impressed by Blizzard if we saw some reaction to your thoughts from them.
I like the article and how the wow factor translates into grabbing people's attention; however I think that given that SC2 has such expectations that it should already equal BW's "overpowered balance" - wherein a lot was overpowered, but was well balanced because proper counters, player skill and other overpowered abilities could balance each other in 1v1 matchups, Blizzard is being extremely conservative with unit power levels right now; and has focused on making them one-sided and macro oriented. However, I sincerely feel that they will tilt towards going for their old philosophy with HotS and LotV; like what they did with BW where seemingly OP units like the Lurker and DT combined with the synergy of units like the Medic and Corsair were mixed in.
Hope that Blizz is actually balancing everything "for the time being" i.e. for the current game, and does not forget to merge everything they'll eventually bring to the table into a synergistic, well-balanced tension with each other.
Ensnare vs Fungal is another good example. If you had amazing micro, ensnare might not screw you over. But fungal makes units STOP COLD. Much less exciting and dynamic.
I just made an account to say that I wholeheartedly agree with this article, and that this is exactly what I have felt is missing the entire sc2 beta! This cute kind of micro is really what makes sc:bw games so much more entertaining than sc2 ones currently to be honest!
I really hope blizzard listens to this post! well written and gratz on 20 000!
Force Fielding well will give you an edge, but it will be a slight edge - not like a Fungal Growth which paralyses your units and deals a whopping 80 damage, that's a battle changing ability
FF doesn't give an "edge". FF IS a battle changing ability. FF can make a good toss entirely immune to any melee/low range unit, it can block ramps infinitly and once you hit a certain sentry count the shape of the map doesn't even matter anymore because with enough FF you can just entirely make your own chokes and walls, which are entirely impenetrable until thors/collosi/ultras come out. 6 sentries can hold of most of the ground forces in the game for infinite time from passing through a choke.
FF is easily as powerfull as Fungal, Storm or EMP and i'm pretty sure FFing will be one of the key abilites a skilled Protoss will need to compete.
Force Fielding well will give you an edge, but it will be a slight edge - not like a Fungal Growth which paralyses your units and deals a whopping 80 damage, that's a battle changing ability
FF doesn't give an "edge". FF IS a battle changing ability. FF can make a good toss entirely immune to any melee/low range unit, it can block ramps infinitly and once you hit a certain sentry count the shape of the map doesn't even matter anymore because with enough FF you can just entirely make your own chokes and walls, which are entirely impenetrable until thors/collosi/ultras come out. 6 sentries can hold of most of the ground forces in the game for infinite time from passing through a choke.
FF is easily as powerfull as Fungal, Storm or EMP and i'm pretty sure FFing will be one of the key abilites a skilled Protoss will need to compete.
Everything in this article is perfect except this one sentence.
"Force Fielding well will give you an edge, but it will be a slight edge - not like a Fungal Growth which paralyses your units and deals a whopping 80 damage, that's a battle changing ability."
Force Field is a game changing ability. Just look at the recent idra vs tester games or ask any zerg player And fungal growth does 36dmg over 8 seconds. And it doesnt stack. Its not like zerg can fg your army and then use their other aoe spell. Other than that great job and i hope blizz will take notice.
I agree with alot of those ideas. However, I think the Sentry idea of blocking Emp would be pretty broken, unless sentries were made to be more expensive (or guardian shield used more energy). If you just had shield block emp, it would make the ghost useless in PvT, because near any army composition has some sentries in it. Although I could see it working if it cost the sentry more energy, thus eliminating any forcefield potential, so the player has to choose the trade off.
I totally agree with the baneling/storm changes most of all.
Great read, and some really good suggestions on mechanics and countering in general ! Your approach to "wow" potential is well worth a thought, i sure hope Blizzard follows up
EDIT: On the GS blocking EMP matter, if you made it so that the sentry having the shield up could not do anything else( not attack nor cast FF ), it would still make EMP`s viable by sniping that one Sentry, and demand more micro from the toss player to keep it up and running once that sentry is down.
Guest-347: As I hope your development team is aware, certain "tricks" have been found recently by the community. These include Void Ray "Fazing" wherin a player can manually attack different targets in rapid succession to artificially increase damage output, and a series of commands that enables (limited) infestor underground casting of Fungal Growth and Nueral Parasite. Is the dev team aware of these issues and how are they going to be addressed before launch?
DustinB: We are aware of the Void Ray fazing and we will be addressing that. I was not personally aware of underground casting of Infestor abilities. I'll go take a look.=)
Plexa, I was actually wondering what you had planned for your 20k and this sir has delivered
I agree with pretty much everything mentioned in the article and sincerely hope blizz takes some of this stuff into account... Sc2 is very fun game to play but it could definitely use some more of this "wow" factor in units and abilities.
great post. i pre-ordered sc2 and i wasn't that excited to get it (particularly because I had a beta but my computer was crap), so i never really followed it. the article really opened my eyes to the game's potential, and with my new laptop I'm actually pretty excited for the game.
Good Read Plexa! Thanks and congrats on the 20k! Only one question,(sorry if I missed where you talked about this) How can you do the same harass with voidrays against terran against zerg and what can they do to counter it?
WOW! This article had that *wow* moment Great read and very interesting ideas that I think blizzard should take a look at and hopefully recognize the potential of it! Let's hope that such changes appear soon after the launch!
I'm just glad blizzard is making the game and not OP. A 50 energy spell casted by a 50 min and 100 gas T1 unit nullifying a 150 / 150 gas T2unit's 100 energy spell. HOORAY BALANCE!!! They'd have to make the force field cost 125 energy at that rate.
the examples you used to show what a game needs to create wow effects were good chosen. even if some won't see through and just see you writing that sentries should counter EMP.
The point is not tell Blizz to make sentries counter EMPs. The point is to show which kind of design changes will improve wow effects
Nice article, it's nice to try and improve on micro mechanics and "wow" moments. I know you said this isn't a balance discussion & just a design one, but you can't have 1 discussion without the other because it's unrealistic. Spells need to have the methods, or you need to change other parts of the game to balance the changes out. Basically you say: Zerg: increase Infestor cast times, reduce baneling damage if sniped (not many banelings ever make it to the full front of a terran ball for example) Terran: increase EMP cast times Toss: buff Sentry guardian shield & increase storm DPS (longer duration)
Excellent post. I especially liked the baneling idea and the concept of the "wow" moment. I think SC2 has a lot of hidden secrets and I'm interested to see how several concepts play out as the game becomes more mature (e.g. warp tech for toss).
Why not exploit the fact that Protoss units have shields instead of sacrificing units? Get two phoenix and charge on both of them without killing them or something. ^^
Interesting read.
Btw regarding micro, something I feel is ridiculous is "auto-micro" as I call it. I was playing around in scenarios once upon a time with Ghosts, target firing my marines.
You attack with the entire group and only the amount of ghosts it takes to kill the marine shoot. It takes 3 ghosts shot to kill a marine and when I tell 6 Ghosts to attack, only 3 actually do so.
You cannot overkill with ranged units, something I find crazy. Tanks too I believe? -_-
Great post, putting focus on a much needed topic to discuss. Just by looking at the different playstyle and how the gameplay has developed during beta you understand that this is a real question. The lack of wow factors must lie in the unit design and movement pattern, I dont think any game in its beta stages has gone under this immense pressure and testing by so many skilled players. Simply saying that players havnt figured out yet how to use the units wow factor just yet doesnt cover the whole story. Sure there are more likely many new stuff to come out of the current build but not enough to satisfy me and my nerdyness.
Nice read, while I'm not sure if just doing that would make the game VERY interesting to watch it certainly can't hurt.
problem is I don't think blizzard wants to do that, harder game = less sales T_T
(and before someone says easy to learn hard to master in reply, not mastering the spell which is hard leads to getting stomped on Battle.Net and thus leads to less fun with it and less sales for blizzard. from a Noob who can't master said spell point of view of course.)
On a side note, contaminate discussion would be interesting, but it's just not seen often enough. (As I see it, a couple key contaminates at technical (lair morph, warpgates, misc. key upgrades) bottlenecks could really have a huge effect)
On July 23 2010 23:27 AncienTs wrote: gut feeling tells me that fazing is a bug and will/ought to be removed...
but then again fazing requires so much focus that you can lose time managing other important things, namely, macroing
Well, it's definitely a bug, no doubt about it.
As for whether it should be removed, I'll disagree with the OP and state that I do not really find fazing to be all that good of a quirk of the engine. In abstract, I have to say that I am wary of effectiveness multipliers, particularly on units that already have their sort of multiplier built in (the charge-up mechanic). Stacking those is a very quick way to break a game.
More concretely, I think that at the moment there's already enough tension when void rays rushes hit. A little mismanagement can cost somebody the entire game (in zerg's case: produce the appropriate building/units, coordinate queens, probably defend from the zealot push that comes together with the VR attack). Little micro tricks should help the defender in this case, at least in my opinion. Also, the bug that allows you to pretty much insta-kill unlimited numbers of small units (as long as you have enough void rays to one-shot them one at a time you can just shift-click them) follows exactly the same dynamic as fazing. That one, however, is pretty much one-sided.
I think there is an interesting point to be made with fungal growth. Putting aside balance for a moment, a cast time would make FG harder to land and more exciting when it hit. Why, however, is something like plague so exciting (PLAAAAGUU!), when it is so similar to fungal growth? Plague is instant cast after all.
I think people just aren't used to the damage. A plague from the expensive, slow, weak defiler (hey, just like the infestor!) can cripple an entire army, and people know exactly what that red graphic means and freak out as a defiler charges towards the enemy. Will the tanks kill it? Will he juke the plague? Ahhh!
Well placed fungal growths on an army can be just as devastating as a good plague, and should be just about as hard or easy to land. I know I get excited when an mmm ball gets slammed by FG and a bunch of flanking lings come running in. Are people just not used to thinking of FG as just as powerful as plague? Is it because the graphic is less 'scary'? Does anyone else think FG already has a 'wow factor'?
Also, lol @ forcefield giving a 'small' edge. Look at Idra vs Tester on scrap station in the King of the Beta tournament to see that 'small' edge in action in their 200/200 battle.
Threads like this are what i love about TL. well along with the other awesomeness.
Was not aware of void ray 'fazing', but now really want to try it out!
I liked what you mentioned about EMP / Guardian shield. What if an EMP disabled one guardian shield, but didn't actually 'emp'. 100 energy for 100 energy? Or exploded on the edge of the shield, instead of its intended target. that'd be pretty cool.
Nothing wrong with the baneling though. I think the fact that it explodes when killed is the best part about it. When I was starting out as zerg i thought banelings sucked, I would never be able to use them because i wasn't korean and would end up exploding all my banelings on one marauder or something because of bad attack-move. Then I saw a vid that said basically never put your banelings on attack-move just use move and get them as close as possible. Let enemy fire do the rest.
Also re: fungal growth it actually used to have a cast animation it seems odd that people forgot. I recall it looking similar to the infested terran. It was pretty tough to aim, especially against stimmed troops or zerglings or charging zealots, mutalisks, phoenix.. aka everything that fungal growth is useful for killing.
Beautifully written post and definitely gives hope that SC2 can be just as good or greater than SC BW if Blizzard bolsters the idea of "wow" factors. This was a great read and hits the many points that people are worrying about. Now if only we could know what Dustin Browder is thinking....
Fungal Growth should be instant. Before there was a delay and Terran players almost never got caught by a fungal growth. The DPS of Fungal Growth is ridiculously low for it to be non-instant.
Nerfing baneling. I know that it is a game and sometimes there is some really strange things in a game but this is ridiculous. A bomb is a bomb. Shoot a bomb or detonate the bomb and you have the same damage.
Lots of interesting ideas. I was immediately resistent to the idea of the guardian shield stopping EMP, but I like the idea that a ghost can snipe sentries as well. An interesting idea.
Is there damage decriment to the the banelings explosive damage as the area increases like most AOE or is it a flat number? If so I'm not sure I feel any need for them to deal less damage if they are exploding upon death. Even if it isn't though I'm not sure it would be helpful. Usually the "action" happening with banelings explosions goes down so fast that I feel it may be difficult to appreciate whether inidividual banelings did less damage to this or that because of some micro.
Once again, excellent read, very well written, excellent ideas that I think I'd like to see implemented in some way.
Isn't Blizzard getting rid of fazing for void rays?
DustinB:: "We are aware of the Void Ray fazing and we will be addressing that. I was not personally aware of underground casting of Infestor abilities. I'll go take a look.=)"
At least they're "addressing" it. I don't think "fazing" is such an issue, though. Getting a critical number of void rays that will "one-shot" marines and queuing them up is kind of a game-breaker. The void rays kill marines as fast as they can target them at that point.
I think fungal growth has a pretty large wow factor. Similarly to plague(no cast time/animation), except instead of seeing if 1hit zerglings rape an army, it's waiting to see if he is going to be able to get use out of fungal growth by killing the fungal growthed units.
Or seeing fg be used like forcefield and create a wall of units that just messes units getting into position.
But I would say FG does not have the same wow factor as plague, maybe because its not immediate.
Very nice read, indeed the "wow" factor should depend on both players actions.
I think storms hp/dmg/running speed balancing could be achieved by progressivly increasing its damage over time. So you want to move your units out of the storm, quickly.
Really nice article, I enjoyed reading it. One minor thing I'd like to point out - that picture of the Void Seeker. The Void Seeker wasn't an early version of the void ray, it is Zeratul's ship in the campaign.
I'd like Blizzard to keep fazing in, but only at the uncharged level. Fazing with a charged beam is just ridiculously powerful. Also only being able to faze at uncharged level presents the player with a decision - to faze or to charge.
How about storm deals 9% of a units hp + a small flat amount 10 times over the duration of the spell
Of course with a cap so BC's don't get raped so hard by it.
Also the travel times on fungal and emp are huge nerfs that would make these spells almost unusable, they would need AoE and possibly damage buffs to be worthwhile again.
I really like the guardian shield / emp interaction though. fits well with lore.
1 emp will end any guardian shield it touches, but will have no other effect.
So if the terran spams out emps and the protoss spams out shields at the perfect timing, no emps will land. or something like that.
Maybe instead of buffing the damage on EMP it could stun for a short time. like 0.5 seconds or so.
I think players don't run from storm as much because it's almost a given that a good Protoss will just storm the area the units are running towards as well. Since storm doesn't stack, you might as well stay and attack if there are more than like two templar.
EXCELLENT article, I really agree on almost all spells with the wow factors. I think guardian shield blocking out EMP would be a great dynamic to add as well.
Well written article and youre spot on about some of these changes.
I understand how you can say that these changes dont require rebalancing since they deal the same dmg and have the same effect as before and now it is basically down to the player and his/hers skill that determines how and if they hit enemy units. However this also changes the dynamics of the game in how challenging these are to use hence how much they actually affect the game when used. If e.g. fg becomes too hard to use it surely will not have the same effect overall. Someone posted before me and recalled how fg was before it was instant, that is a situation that definitely needs balancing.
And to talk some more about fungal growth. Some posters before me have pointed out the factual errors but stalkers can still blink when under fg and vikings can change between air and land mode(cant recall their exact names right now). I'm pretty sure warp prism can change between pylon mode and flight mode(again with the names :D) as well even though it is under fg. Units can basically do anything but move when under fg.
Overall, again, well written article and I agree alot of these changes should make it into the game simply for the fact it would make for better entertainment(and sc2 is damn well entertaining as it is already). Just needs the proper balancing that simply doesnt remove the wow moments.
Nice read, but I disagree wholeheartedly on banelings being changed so they don't do as much damage; banelings are barely effective now against marauders and not against mech or Stalkers as much. Reducing Baneling's damage would have their use extremely limited.
Also, forcefield -IS- a game changing spell. It suddenly turns the fight thats a 120 Food versus 120 Food army into a 120 Food versus 80-90 food army. Spamming forcefields really isn't a hard thing to do, and any mediocre toss can use forcefields with game-breaking effectiveness
On July 23 2010 23:28 pksens wrote: Nice article, it's nice to try and improve on micro mechanics and "wow" moments. I know you said this isn't a balance discussion & just a design one, but you can't have 1 discussion without the other because it's unrealistic. Spells need to have the methods, or you need to change other parts of the game to balance the changes out. Basically you say: Zerg: increase Infestor cast times, reduce baneling damage if sniped (not many banelings ever make it to the full front of a terran ball for example) Terran: increase EMP cast times Toss: buff Sentry guardian shield & increase storm DPS (longer duration)
Doesn't seem right.
These are just suggestions to improve the dynamics of the game. If it turns out that giving spine crawlers wings and letting ultralisks carry banelings on their backs and throw them at the opposing army improves these dynamics, then by all means change the game in that direction. Plexa is merely offering suggestions in how to improve game dynamics. I'm sure that there are plenty of other changes that could be made that favor other races. And also, it's not like you can't rebalance fungal growth to deal more damage if you increase infestor cast time, or increase baneling AoE and damage when they hit to compensate for lack of damage upon death. That's why balance isn't an issue in this article. It's merely focusing on pointing out ways the game can be improved for both the average player and the competitive player.
I've always thought that FG and EMP not having a cast/travel time (or having one so short it's practically instantaneous) was really retarded. Make the cast/travel time like Maelstrom and EMP from BW, respectively! It worked perfectly before so why not use it now? Don't fix what ain't broke, right? Additionally, the baneling change is, imo, one of the #1 things that need to be changed. Keeping it as is would be as if every time you killed a spider mine it did damage anyway. I mean, if that was the case, this couldn't happen!
I remember when I first saw this game, I shit bricks. It was amazing. I would absolutely love to see this kind of skillful micro happen again in SC2, except this time with banelings.
The only thing I disagree with was your idea about the Guardian Shield change. I think that'd be a little too strong. GS already covers quite a large area and it'd be very easy for Protoss to just cover his entire army with a few sentries. Furthermore, if they clump all their casters under a GS, then the Terran really can't EMP those casters! I think that'll actually take away some of that "wow" factor. Although I do believe that it'd be nice to somehow tweak GS so that eliminating sentries that are using GS would be more beneficial, but this probably shouldn't be as high on the priority list when compared to the other stuff.
Fungal/EMP/Storm would be better if they had casting animation and a charging sound similar to Yamato cannon so opponent knows they are coming. Too bad this idea was brought this late in the game so Blizzard might not want to "try it out" in release.
AOE range/Mana cost/unit cost might need some tweaking in the process.
Upgrade on Guardian shield sounds cool, but it would need to be researched in a higher tier building like twilight council and it would be reduction of EMP's effect rather than 100% immunity.
I'd love to see more ways for Terran to manouver in microbattles, similar to fazing with Void rays. Mass Ghost sniping is my favorite against zerg.
First time i've read an article this size about starcraft, probably because it didnt dazzle me with loads of SC1 stuff i had no clue about :D
Really good read, and i agree with everything you have said. More of these mechanics would definitely make the game much more fun to play, and much more interesting to watch.
Sexy read, grats on the 20k. I pretty much agree with everything minus adding a cast time, Infestor doesn't get so much use as of late anymore nerfing it further might just discourage zergs period.
you cant say that the void ray is a hard unit to master AT ALL. There may be some tricks you can use with them, but there not micro intensive and they dont require any brain power whats so ever. Look at muta's for the PERFECT UNIT that recquires micro without being an aoe damage dealing unit.
Don't agree with most of this, just the Baneling part, and the constant "wow" usage nearly made me gag. Storms are really effective, Guardian Shield is really effective, the game is set up to last for years, and most of the suggestions would simply unbalance the game. I don't understand why you wouldn't run out of a storm, either. All of your units cannot possibly be in the center of the storm, so all you need to do is walk a few steps, and you're out after taking minor damage. Imagine how stupid it would be to see pro gamers just leaving all of their units in storms to die. "I gots no incentive, amirite guys!?"
its not about balancing the game, some of u say "if u do this then zerg is bad", assuming blizzard did the micro changes then they would also buff the units so they gave a more reward. for example make fungual more dodgable and add 20 damage to it, w/e. we are not talking about stats here since blizzard is better at that we are just saying when 2 players interact in a micro battle both of them should have a say of whats going on. emp is not dodgable therefor toss doesnt have a say, except for spreading his units BEFORE the battle, but BEFORE the battle doesnt really count if u ask me. if banes just died upon death blizzard would have to buff them so they did more dmg to reward the zerg for keeping them alive and getting an attack off, so thats the topic here. reward ppl to be able to pull off hard things where both where the enemy can stop u from doing it by good micro or u can pull it off by good micro or tactics.
force field isnt wow unit even tho its strong, but it adds alot of deph into the game without being wow so thats why it doesnt have to be changed. guardian shield has the concept of wow because toss wanna have it in the middle of the army but far away so terran cant snipe it and terrans goal is to snipe it asap, but in reality guardian shield doesnt do enough to make it worth the while for terran, hence alot of micro going on between the players depending on different situations and positioning. same with neutral parasite, sure u cant dodge it but u can kill the infestor off and the spell is useless.
so things like stimpack require tons of micro, toss can fake move in to force a stim then back off but it still goes down to a terrans timing of stimpack, stimpack too early and ull need 2 stims during a battle, stim too late and u wont deal enough damage. its not a wow spell but its damn deep enough to add tons of micro, just like force field.
so sure u can drop banelings from overlords or burrow them in the ground but terran has no say in the situation anyway. either his tanks rape them in 1 shot by hard counter or bio cant kill them at all because of hard counter, not micro, we want zergs to be able to use banelings effectivly even if terrans has tanks and we want terrans to be able to pull off some sexy micro vs banelings even if he doesnt have tanks. sc2 is too unit composition heavy and even if the game end up balanced u will be forced to make certain unit compositions rather than being forced to micro, and this is bad for the game as a spectator sport
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.
On July 24 2010 02:01 OHtRUe wrote: you cant say that the void ray is a hard unit to master AT ALL. There may be some tricks you can use with them, but there not micro intensive and they dont require any brain power whats so ever. Look at muta's for the PERFECT UNIT that recquires micro without being an aoe damage dealing unit.
Well why do you say that they are not micro intensive? I would say that their relative short range, togather with their cost and how little damage they can take makes them hard to micro. At the same time you need to tend to them to make them do enough damage and not die, all the while you still have to keep an eye on your macro. Its not like 10 marines that you a-click while you can flick back to your base and build supply and some scvs while the fight is under way.
These are all great observations and ideas -- really dead on. I love the suggestions for EMP that require travel time and give the protoss options (dodge, don't clump casters, make forcefield resist the emp). Also great suggestions for banelings and fungal growth, too.
The voidray is the perfect example to use, and good analysis of that unit's potential.
This writeup showed a lot of thought, and it was refreshing to finally read some constructive SC2 criticism based around a unified design philosophy, rather than knee-jerk reaction from pouty players post-defeat.
totally agreed, especially at psi storm, it definitely needs to do more damage over time, maybe at a slower rate
also, emp missile and fungal growth cast timing are good ideas. maybe make fungal growth actually grow out some slimy stuff on an area and when units are standing there after it completes (lets say 2-3 seconds) fungal growth takes effect. maybe increase radius or something
also what i think would make void ray battles vs terran even more entertaining is if vikings had even more range or would be a little faster so they can hit/run rays more effectively.
and maybe something could be done to reapers d4 charge to make them more effective mid game. maybe make it into something like a spider mine or something similar, like let them be planted anywhere and go off after 5-10 seconds
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.
I wonder if there is a terran AA unit that flies faster, deals more damage, has more range, is cheaper, can go into ground mode for quicker harass than a void ray, and requires roughly the same tech...
Another possible tweak to banelings would be making them do friendly fire. Imagine a single baneling getting sniped taking out a line of banelings in domino effect, eventually leading into hurting the zerg army.
I'd like to see uncharged phasing kept and charged phasing removed, for reasons mostly already listed: it adds some decision making, and charged fazing seems dangerously powerful, while you need a silly number of uncharged VRs for fazing to be game breaking.
Also I don't claim that the current state of things is imbalanced, but if you want to soften the power of EMP against protoss, I think a good way to do it would be to make the guardian shield block part (probably 25-50%) of its damage, either innately or as an upgrade. It's a simple adjustment that keeps most of the existing dynamic intact, but gives protoss a method of mitigation while adding some decision making on the part of the terran: EMP through the shield? try and snipe the sentry first? EMP outside the shield? It would depend a lot on the given situation.
Liquipedia II says EMP and GS are both 75 energy, while people in this topic have said it's 100. one of the two has their facts wrong.
Awesome article. You forgot about two units though:
- Zergling TLO's speedling usage has convinced me of this... even though these aren't as strong as in BW as a combat unit and DPS dealer, they are amazingly fast and when used correctly they can destroy a mineral line through sheer speed and numbers.
It is the fact that they are "weak" units that gives them the WOW factor when they are used effectively
- Hellion This killing machine deals SO MUCH DAMAGE to the right units it is amazing. Sure it has no spider mines, sure it doesn't attack as fast and is not nearly as maneuverable as its old cousin. But it shouldn't be thought of as a vulture, the Hellion is a Vulture + Lurker. It is fast enough to do runbies, it destroys mineral lines if positionned correctly. In battle, it acts as an anti-antiarmor meatshield and anti-light DPS. Of special note is the Hellion+Tank+Marauder vs Hydra+Roach+Speedling+Creep interaction. This interaction requires enormous skill, and is amazing to watch =D
I'm sure he could have covered many more units and abilities as well, but I think he chose to pick a few on purpose. <_>
In any case, I loved this article and I agree with it. Some little changes that seem negligible on the casual side will come a long way for professional gaming.. "wow" gaming. Blizzard, you reading this?
I had this rly long post about how the VR attack is intentionally frontloaded, but my browser crashed and I lost it....but yea, would be easy to fix if blizz didn't want to keep it this way.
I don't think the void ray is the only unit. I also think that with better control there is going to be some impressive hellion micro in the future. Controlling multiple hellions, positioning them individually so that their thin AoE attack does the most possible damage.
I also think that there's some form of micro possible with mutalisks that we haven't even figured out yet. Not like brood war's muta micro, but I think there's something else that can be done with them, just by the kind of strange way they control.
I definitely agree with the points of this article. Good micro needs to be rewarded and I think that's what people have yet to see in SC2 as much. I really hope more cool tricks are found for each race and battles become a lot more micro heavy. Your small idea about EMP being disabled with a guardian shield is really interesting. I would love to see something like that. Might make sentries to strong though...
If the EMPs land first, then the Sentries don't have the energy to cast Guardian Shield, but if the Guardian Shield activates first, the EMP is wasted. Or the Terran could wait and kill off the Sentries before shooting the EMPs, but then the Protoss army has more time to deal damage.
And it would give Protoss incentive to use Guardian Shield rather than Force Field.
I wish this happened. I really, really wish it did.
On July 24 2010 02:57 MangoTango wrote: So is the VR the SC2 answer to Reaver Harass?
I think it's more like muta harass for protoss, of course not nearly as powerful. If you want a reaver harass style thing in SC2, I've seen warp prism/colossus usage that can be pretty awesome.
Make the Protoss choose between Guardian Shield and Force Fields. They cannot just spam Guardian Shields now. If they don't, then Terran will have free EMPs go off. If they do, they're going to have to use Force Fields more effectively, instead of spamming them halfway in an enemies' army.
Maybe if Banelings had the same mechanic Spider Mines had, it would make for more interesting positional plays. If they are burrowed and someone walks over them, they unburrow and explode, but with much less damage. If you walk them, they do slightly less damage then they do now.
A lot of games fall under the repetition category. Where all you have to do is move your army to attack. There's no skill involved. The Colossi replaced the Reaver, but the Reaver took a lot more skill to use. To shoot Scarabs in the right direction. Same with Vultures and Spider Mines. Spider Mines in correct positions could decimate a force, and it would be up to the player to use them well. Hellions do none of that. They just run around shooting, like any other unit. Neural Parasite and Fungal Growth aren't skill moves, they're just special attacks that are somewhat overpowered.
Like he said, they are moves that have no counter. There is no skill divide between players using the moves. Any player can summon an Infestor or a Ghost and use Fungal Growth or EMP well on a better player. It is the better player that should be able to counter the move. Spreading out units is not a counter. It's a general strategy.
The void ray definitely just feels wrong for me at this point. I can't really get into the current unit, as it just doesn't seem to fit in the current game set like the other units.
EDIT: accidentally posted prematurely
My current suggestion for the void ray is that if the unit/structure that it is attacking dies, it loses its charge. This would allow for a ton of micro possibilities (putting units in the red with a charged void ray(s) while your designated uncharged void ray finishes them off). It also fits the lore of the void ray fairly well, and maintains it as a great base destruction unit. It may need buffed elsewhere to compensate, but I think it would add a lot more uniqueness and take away that lackluster feeling the void ray has.
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.
I wonder if there is a terran AA unit that flies faster, deals more damage, has more range, is cheaper, can go into ground mode for quicker harass than a void ray, and requires roughly the same tech...
ooh ohh ooh... pick me pick me... i know the answer... ITS A BATTLECRUISER!!! im so smart
I like the ideas behind fungal and emp. However, these abilities would need to be buffed somehow to compensate(aoe radius buff perhaps?) Putting a casting time without buffing would weaken these abilities significantly. Well, terran are more than ok so maybe that'd be fine, but zerg definitely do not need any changes to make then weaker.
To make guardian shield more of a wow spell it needs to be as hard to perform as it would be to try and focus those fleeing guardians in the middle of a toss mass. I don't know how they could do that, but simply jamming the guardian shield hotkey 6 times isn't difficult in the slightest.
but i would welcome changes like these because i totally agreeon the whole wow factor thing.
An important thing about these "wow" moments (from a spectator perspective) is that they must have a significant impact on the game. It doesn't really matter how skillful something is if it doesn't have much impact on the outcome of the game.
I was just talking about this same issue with my dad (who's played StarCraft almost every day since '99). He hasn't been all that interested in SC2 for this very reason.
Awesome article, and congrats on 20k posts! I totally agree with your suggested baneling nerf/adjustment. They definitely should still do damage even when killed (as opposed to their normal suicide attack) but it should be lowered significantly.
On July 24 2010 02:07 ExcessEnemy wrote: Don't agree with most of this, just the Baneling part, and the constant "wow" usage nearly made me gag. Storms are really effective, Guardian Shield is really effective, the game is set up to last for years, and most of the suggestions would simply unbalance the game. I don't understand why you wouldn't run out of a storm, either. All of your units cannot possibly be in the center of the storm, so all you need to do is walk a few steps, and you're out after taking minor damage. Imagine how stupid it would be to see pro gamers just leaving all of their units in storms to die. "I gots no incentive, amirite guys!?"
Play a PvZ where you try to storm a Zerg using hydra/roach. Often, they'll just sit their roaches in the storm and not even bother to dodge it. In fact, if they have burrow and the increased hp regen researched, they'll just burrow the affected roaches and they'll be at full hp a few seconds after the storm is over. Even storms on hydras are slightly underwhelming. A hydra can sit through a whole storm and still survive (albeit with only 1 hp).
The problem with storm is that the max damage is set at 80, which is not enough to kill many units at all. Additionally, the only units that a full storm can kill would often die anyways even if the player tried to dodge the storm (i.e. zerglings and stimmed marines die within 1.5-2.5 seconds). As a result, it is often much more beneficial to just tank out the storm and allow your units to continue firing. Due to the terrible, terrible damage syndrome that is SC2, units now deal a ton more damage in a shorter period of time. As such, by tanking the storms and letting your units just continue attacking, you will often be able to deal damage to your opponent and perhaps turn the tide of the battle, rather than retreating and giving your opponent a few seconds worth of free shots on your army.
So yes, "I gots no incentive" to dodge storms in most cases.
People severely under use burrowed banelings. They can destroy every marine in the terran army.
I think Blizzard got it right. If they die before they get in range of the army, they deal no damage, or the splash radius only hits a small portion of the army, dealing less damage.
if spamming a+click to maybe quadruple your damage is considered skill, sc2 has a low skill ceiling indeed.
spreading out marines is a ridiculous suggestion, you waste time NOT shooting the void ray that you desperately need. if you don't get there immediately, the ray will charge and then it's over. vikings seem to be the only solution, if fazing persists in its current state. either that or stim, perhaps.
On July 24 2010 03:51 scojac wrote: i think i must be in the minority here....
but the void ray trick is complete bullshit.
if spamming a+click to maybe quadruple your damage is considered skill, sc2 has a low skill ceiling indeed.
spreading out marines is a ridiculous suggestion, you waste time NOT shooting the void ray that you desperately need. if you don't get there immediately, the ray will charge and then it's over. vikings seem to be the only solution, if fazing persists in its current state. either that or stim, perhaps.
You really don't know what you're talking about... Doing this sort of micro takes away from other micro/macro, and does in fact take skill to pull off. The best thing to liken this to is muta micro, which in essence isn't too much more complicated then this. It's a sacrifice of APM to get more punch from your units, which i think this game needs more of.
For the fungal growth cast time, i disagree completely, my essence it is a fast reaction spell who's purpose isn't doing damage, but to lock the units in place. The wow factor isn't that it hits, but that it hits at the right timing/placement so that the units it hits can't engage/run/whatever they were trying to do.
Interesting points but your ideas on Storm I think are a little off base, yes you COULD just stand there in the storm and maybe eat it. But theres no reason to just take it unless you're trapped in a corner. If you dodge the storms you can usually make their zealots take some damage from the storm while minimizing your own. Storm is powerful but I dont think it needs MORE changes as its already been weakened slightly giving it the ability to be more easily dodged would have to be coincided with some sort of other buff to the ability.
Watching high level play most players will try to back out of storm even with roaches or marauders unless the battle hinges on them getting off the maximum number of shots. But even then standing in the storm will mean you die faster anyway, the decision to dodge storm should be a risk/reward equation which I think it kind of is right now.
As much as i would hate to see it happen, i do think that Blizzard will patch fazing, though I do agree with your article and think it is good for the game, and is not easy to do.. I for example will not be able to do it without failing at everything else. But at the same time I can see how it may be a bit too strong on the high level of play. And I guess letting your macro slip is not a huge deal if you already won the game To reiterate though, I do not want it removed, and agree with op... but I think Bliz will "fix" this. (if it is indeed to strong maybe reduce the effectiveness a bit instead of "fixing the bug" all together?
edit/p.s. for those who say its not difficult to continue macroing, remember this is Toss, a stargate tech implies only WGs are out atm, so macroing probably requires having to shift away from the battle.
I thought blizzard removed fazing. Good to hear that they didn't. The Void ray vs marine feels like mutalisks vs marine in BW. They both kill each other ridiculously fast.
I gotta say, I usually just lurk and observe the forums and articles, but this was so fantastically done I just had to say good job. Really, this was great.
Very well thought out post I enjoyed the insight into what makes games fun to watch. I hope this drives blizzard to implement the emp change would be nice to at least give the protoss a chance to dodge it.. as we can dodge storms.
I agree with the general concept with everything youve said. However I disagree with the ways in which you execute this concept, other things need to be taken in to account.
Besides for Banelings, reduced dmg when they die is how it should be. Helps the micro required significantly.
Firstly Fungal Growth, isnt nearly the beast you think think it is. FG only does 36 dmg over like 6 seconds (given your frozen so 36 dmg is unavoidable) However making it so that its difficult to get off FG, would make Fg not even worth it. Fg just Softens an army, and allows zerg to take even greater advantage of their mobility.
Also You oddly Contradict, You want to make FG harder to get off, but make Storm something to fear. With enough High Temps Storm is just demolishing, and taking dmg from Storm is currently already quite unfavorable. Btw a Full effect Storm for Zerg kills both Zerglings and Hydras, completely detrimental to get caught in one of thoes for zerg.
However i do feel about a 1.25-1.5 second casting delay would be good, but for all AoE spells. Make people have to predict where the army will be. Even that short of a dealy can be the difference between a good Strom and a Poor storm.
I hope they add some more versatile units like to void ray into the expansions. I would like to see some form of bomber for protoss, similar to a flying reaver or something. So protoss can get some dedicated air to ground.
And I think this is exactly what people were looking for in sc2; that part of the game that allowed players to make a crazy comeback at a clutch moment. The deciding factor that was kinda a final hope.
On July 23 2010 19:48 RogerRus wrote: But: If the shield could block EMP, going for ghosts somewhat early in pvt would be too risky, it costs too much for the terran if it can be that easily blocked. To make a EMP blocking shield you would have to make sentries more expensive , or add a upgrade to do it. Most likely both. But maybe that would be a welcomed upgrade to the pretty much useless twilight council...
As a protoss player, I think that would be a great way to change the game. Adds in a bit more micro that the game seems to be lacking
Here's to some intense theorycrafting just before the game release!
EDIT: And similar to Huk's desire to be the "Lim Yo Hwan of Starcraft 2" I wanna see some Jaedong-esque harass micro Would it be possible for the void ray to become a stalling unit to transition from early game gateway units to late game colossus/ht v. bio? Would the main purpose be for stalling and allowing P to transition into late game, or would it be more limited in it's use due to play style? I can't think of a major "IMBA" spell that would change the role of a PvX matchup the same way that dark swarm did (goes back to the "everything used properly is overpowered" post or something of that nature; i'll dig it up first link on the thread.)
This article sounds like it was written by someone who only plays Toss and doesn't consider the dynamics of the other races. The comments about force fields only giving a slight edge and that banelings are just a unit that you send in and they automatically do crazy damage are just straight up wrong. Anybody can just use force fields to split up an army, but watch the HDH finals on Metalopolis, where White Ra put force fields at the perfect distance away from his collosi to make sure that IdrA's infestors couldn't get any neural parasites off and IdrA's army got destroyed because of it. Banelings also require a lot of care from zerg players in order to use effectively, and making them do less damage when they die will pretty much make them useless in TvZ, since you can't touch stimmed marines with them when they're attacking the banelings directly.
Most of the crazy powerful spells in broodwar had instant casting time so why should it be a problem in this game? You can still dodge instant cast spells by paying attention to the position of casters. You should worry less about fixing a bad situation that you are already in and start thinking about how to avoid a bad situation altogether, and you will start to realize more dynamics in competitive play.
I wouldn't have a problem with Void Ray range if it were a ground unit. The problem is having a unit that has reasonable speed (with the upgrade), long range, multi-purpose (air and ground), and high damage output and FLIES. That said, the video was pretty awesome.
Mutalisks had very short range but were fairly mobile and powerful, on the other hand Guardians had very long range but were extremely slow and easily countered by air. Void Rays didn't have any real weaknesses until the nerf, and I would much rather a range nerf than a damage nerf.
The Guardian Shield idea seems really awesome, although you would need an EMP nullifying effect (for example the emp flying in but not exploding) for it to have spectator value. Otherwise people might get confused. However all the spells being nerfed to the point of boring is 100% to do with smart-casting, and I would imagine Guardian Shield would just end up becoming a shadow of its former self.
Great article overall, one of the more enjoyable, and more optimistic articles I've read.
You want EMP to be blocked by shield? Ok but make it so that EMP cancels the shield upon impact. You want fungal growth and EMP to have a cast time? Sure but increase its radius and damage. Baneling changes make absolutley no sense. If you kill them they blow up. If they suicide they blow up. There is no difference there its their job to die. And there is already a difference in radius when using X to "activate" suicide.
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.
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.
-Banelings being killed will still let them do damage. That basically means as long as the Zerg moves the banelings into range he's guaranteed a hit.
- 36 damage isn't a lot to you? That essentially leaves stimmed marines at 9 hp, allowing them to die in basically one hit from anything in the Zerg's arsenal except for a zergling.
- Hydras DO NOT DIE from a single storm. All Zerg units automatically regenerate one hp as soon as they take damage. As a result, Hydras will be left with 1-2 hp at the end of storm. It doesn't kill them, it cripples them, as the OP said. Don't believe me? Test it.
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.
Except you and nearly everyone else who disagrees is only arguing from a balance perspective rather than a gameplay perspective. You should also praise everyone person who makes an article, its called good manners.
I would rather not have gameplay reduced to a boring war of attrition because of balancing.
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.
C
Calm down brother. While I am inclined to agree with you, you don't start a dinner party by insulting someone.
-I have to disagree with you and agree with the OP; barring a very large ranged army, it's very difficult to kill banelings before they can get close enough. You know you will get some use out of them.
-The OP's objections to FG is not the damage or duration whatsoever, it is that the lack of a cast/projectile time makes it's use less dynamic
I think the rest of your comments are reasonable but could go either way.
For my two cents, I find force fields not very dynamic on the Zerg end. It depends on the Protoss putting down good FF, but the Zerg is pretty much at their mercy. I haven't heard many good suggestions as to how to counter FF besides Ultras. Any thoughts on this?
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.
I love the things you point out here and I think this will be a great, great addition to the game. But I do hope that blizzard doesnt think we are doing their job. I hope they think of it as, they might this mondo amazing game that is far better than anything they ever put out, but some of the lacks of technology in BW forced these moments that made the game great, and they should allow some of those things back in not for the sake of nostalgia but for the sake of pure longevity.
First off, the Infestor is an example of a unit with amazing “wow” potential. Neural Parasite, as it stands, is a “wow” moment spell – it makes the infestor a prime target in battle and whomever has the most skill will be able to get the best of that situation. That’s excellent! However, fungal growth is not “wow” material in it’s current form. The reason is because it is cast instantly, and for this reason there isn’t anything the Terran can do except take the damage. To turn the Funal Growth into a “wow” spell simply add a cast time to the spell. Give it a nice animation and viola! You have a “wow” moment.
I disagree about fungal growth. I think players are just too use to grouping their entire army into 1 group and then of course fungal growth is extremely deadly because everything is bunched up. If a terran player is better at spreading his army out then fungal growth loses its potential. This is at the cost of better and harder army control.
Also I think that a lot of BW players are too quick to write off micro in SC2. As you start to play a lot of games you will pick up on more things that can really set you above the rest. Here is another fungal growth example. If you fungal growth zealots you can back up out of range with roaches or hydras and fight the zealots without taking any damage, as opposed to just using fungal growth for damage or preventing retreat. This adds dynamics to both sides because again a skilled protoss should avoid bunching up his zealots and should place high priority in blink/sniping or using feedback on infestors so that his zealots are not totally useless. Another trick I like to use is casting fungal growth on units that are in the back of the army and out of range of doing damage. A skilled player will retreat to protect his other units and maximize his armys potential, yet a lot of players will not notice until its too late or will protect their units but give the zerg an opportunity to take advantage of a sitting army.
There are plenty of other things. For example if you spread your army out to create a wider more rectangular group and then move to a far distance your army will stay spread and converge less allowing you to conclave your opponent. Also different units converge to their destination differently. For example banelings group up very poorly and they are more effective if they are not bunched up because enemy units will try to surround them. If you have a group of only 2 units they will not converge. A lot of players move around with 1 group and take significant damage or penalties from having a large ball and wont ever realize that it is severely detrimental to the outcome of a battle.
Also its kind of a no brainer but you should always focus armored units with units that do bonus damage to armored and so forth while also avoiding letting your opponent get bonus damage. Yet most players won't do this or don't quite see the difference it makes until they have about 400 games under their belt and can really see what is going on in battles.
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?).
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.
Very interesting suggestions on how to improve the interactions between units and spells in the game right now without drastically changing balance. I particularly enjoyed the thoughts behind fungal growth, emp, storm, and banelings.
One thought about balancing storm to create these so-called "wow" moments - perhaps storm (and feedback) can do different damage to different types of unilts, making them more effective to certain units while less effective to others. I'm talking about a simple 25% increase or decrease, so that it doesn't necessarily create super hard counters.
For example, storm can deal normal damage to bionic units, more damage to mechanical units (you know, storm->electricity->breaks mechanical units), and less damage to psionic units (hence PSIONIC storm). Just an idea to throw around, I haven't given it too much thought.
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.
Nice read, I fully agree with the general idea and suggestions. I disagree with some small details (Forcefield doesnt just give you a "small" edge, it's a game changing spell correctly used etc...) but I would love to see more of those "wow" moments, I really hope blizzard will read this and have some great ideas.
great read. my two cents for psionic storm: make it do more damage the longer time goes, eg ticks 10,15,15,40 or something like that(something that makes shield-marines worth microing out of storm). this always encourages moving out of storm and has good synergy with force fields.
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.
I agree completely with this! Banelings are already weak enough and if you really wanted to have more of a wow factor with fungal growth you would make it do way more damage and then you might give it a slower moving attack animation.
Zerg also might need one more interesting spell on the overseer or infestor but other than that I am absolutely loving the game. The recent game between TLO and TBO (aka Tester playing on TLO's brother's account) was just absolutely amazing and I think is the way more higher level matches are going to be going as people figure out how to defend against the newer rushes.
On July 24 2010 05:23 the.bishOp wrote: And there is already a difference in radius when using X to "activate" suicide.
Is this true? That would be great, but I'm not convinced it is so.
Very nice OP. As others said, I think you should have made it more clear that your concern is not with balance. For example, obviously Banelings would need more damage on manual suicide than they do now, and FG/EMP should be buffed in other ways as well.
I would rate this article as good packaging but with moderate to poor content.
As a Terran I find no problems with Banelings, they cost gas, minerals and one zergling. Any Zerg that goes banelings will have allot of zerglings wich just screams marauder/banshee play. And the baneling bust is no problem either for those who understands that you can make a Ebay/barrack/factory wallin. The voidray still is the biggest problem due to that it is fucking unstoppable once it's fully charged.
Now, don't get me wrong, things can be done to minimize this. Keep your buildings off the ledges of your base and build as close around your base center as much as possible. This will keep the voidray from being able to charge up on your buildings, which is why the Voidray becomes so damn strong. This way you won't die but the problem is still that one voidray can keep a entire army pinned down in your base which is BS. The protoss can stalk you with his flying siege tank forcing you to tech to starport and produce 2 vikings, until you have 2 vikings you won't get rid of the damn thing and the Protoss can do whatever he wants, like expanding 3 times over.
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.
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 absolutly agree!! my main critic in the game was exactly the point you were talking about. i thought for example about the reaver-drop in BW and asked me, what it that amaezing in sc2? maby colossus drop? maby infestor drop with fungal groth? they are amazeing, but not quite as amazeing as reaverdrops. and they need not that many skill, how you already mentioned. That made me have a little bit fear about sc2 in the future. and i still think, if these things will not be added to the game, then sc2 will not be as amazing as sc:bw. in general i think, most of your explanations are reasonable and right.
the only question now is: how can we make blizzard see and react about this article which is by the way very nice written and a pleasure to read. maby we should send them an e-mail or something... i am sure blizzard will read it if they now about it because they want to make sc2 an epic game. maby they will not do all of these changes you mentioned but at least some of them because they do not change the balance that much and make the game much harder to play it on a very high level. it will not change the low level gameplay at all because newbe's will not be able to use most of these "tricks".
On July 23 2010 19:14 Amestir wrote: I agree with alot of what you said, however there is one thing I disagree with. You say it's very easy to find units with a potential wow factor, however it took 5 months to find the full potential of the Void Ray. I like to think that there are many units in SC2 atm who already have the ability to show as much depth and skill as the Void Ray does, we just haven't found them yet.
Gratz on your 20k ^^
also, the op talked about force fields and storms what happens when used together? trap some roaches, then throw some storms on them. they die i guess this is why Blizzard made force fields easier to block units in patch17 We didn't figure it out. They are waiting for us to figure things out.
some units are not "wow", because they are only wow when combined with other units the void ray is "wow" on it's own (ex. reaver+shuttle in sc1, 2 units which on their own are weak, but when combined have huge potential, especcially gainst an unsuspecting terran)
in the videos, the void rays ripped some marines to shreds. why didn't any1 consider making a ghost? it's practically good against any protoss unit, and against void rays it's exceptional support for the marines.(yes, i am talking about the EMP)
alot of combinations like these pop into my mind. i remember in the beginning no terran used hellions. it's an exceptional unit, fast and cheap, yet people disregarded it completely. could it be that us players are too subjective and see the hellion as a modified vulture? we want the old vultures back so much that we can't just sit down and think how we can use the hellion better? are we too stubborn to think of new ways to harrass instead of complaining that 2 base mutas is useless?
there are alot of wow units and wow abilities: the broodlord, the void ray, the banshee, the immortal, the ghost even low tier units like marauders with concussive shells, zealots once they get legs, roaches once they get burrow and speed (ex. zealot legs drastically change the relationship between zealots and siege tanks, between zealots and hydras, while burrowed roaches can pop up into your main and clean up your whole base if you don't pay attention)
5 months of beta where the game changed shape almost from week to week is not enough for us to figure out.
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.
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.
On July 24 2010 05:10 Fincheronious wrote: You should worry less about fixing a bad situation that you are already in and start thinking about how to avoid a bad situation altogether, and you will start to realize more dynamics in competitive play.
Avoiding a bad situation is all well and good, but it doesn't make for exciting matches for the spectators. What you suggest seems to me to be more like a game of chess; you have to pay attention to your opponent's pieces as well as your own in order to succeed.
However, chess is quite boring to watch because of the subtleties of the moves. Unless your understanding of chess is on par with the people playing it, you won't have a lot of fun watching it simply because you won't understand what's going on. Putting more emphasis on preparation for your opponent also creates a system where once you are behind, it's very hard to win unless your opponent makes a mistake. I'm not saying preparation isn't or shouldn't be important, but it should be on par with spur-of-the-moment tactics.
Starcraft should be a game of hard counters on paper, soft counters in practice. This lets players emphasize on preparation by using good counters to what their opponent builds, but the opponent can still fight back, instead of getting completely obliterated.
Excellent read. I can see a "wow" moment potential in the Hellion. The potential to roast a bunch of drones or other light units I think builds up some good tension. Also, I think there is a high skill cap with Hellions, which brings up a very interesting dynamic. I haven't seen many people make use of micro to optimize the splash damage they're doing with the Hellions. On the other end, it requires a lot of attention from the opponent to split up their units to minimize that splash. I see a lot of potential for some really good Hellion usage.
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.
The game is not boring. It is not boring to watch and it is not boring to play. It already takes a heavy toll on your mind. You can CLEARLY see when you screwed up someone in some way or another. You can see sloppy play, you can clearly see mistakes in macro, in unit composition and a lot of mid battle micro.
What you said in the end of your post nailed it: you need more time to adjust to the game. This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it. The suggestions made are an artificial mean of introducing some "cluch" and states that "balance is not the issue here".
But you CANT change some core game mechanics and expect to not throw balance out of the window. Beta is over, it took many months of tweaking to achieve some form of balance. We will get dozens of patches until the game is fixed but right now it is AT LEAST playable and I dont think anyone disagrees on that.
Truth is people just want to play and keep playing BW. I have seen some excelent SC2 games already, some of wich are way better than most BW I've seen. I find funny that people want to add layers on something they still don't understand.
Some of your points i can agree with, but most of your idea's for Zerg ( banelings and infestors) for instance, are just plain ridiculous and would break the units, effectively making them useless.
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.
The game is not boring. It is not boring to watch and it is not boring to play. It already takes a heavy toll on your mind. You can CLEARLY see when you screwed up someone in some way or another. You can see sloppy play, you can clearly see mistakes in macro, in unit composition and a lot of mid battle micro.
What you said in the end of your post nailed it: you need more time to adjust to the game. This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it. The suggestions made are an artificial mean of introducing some "cluch" and states that "balance is not the issue here".
But you CANT change some core game mechanics and expect to not throw balance out of the window. Beta is over, it took many months of tweaking to achieve some form of balance. We will get dozens of patches until the game is fixed but right now it is AT LEAST playable and I dont think anyone disagrees on that.
Truth is people just want to play and keep playing BW. I have seen some excelent SC2 games already, some of wich are way better than most BW I've seen. I find funny that people want to add layers on something they still don't understand.
This is the last time I'm going to reply to this thread because at this point I feel like we're just repeating ourselves, and other people can do that. I never said it was boring. The perspectives we're taking are clearly different. You're looking from a gamer's perspective, and I can respect that. SC2 is by no means a boring game, neither in watching or playing - for now. It does take a heavy toll on your mind and replay analysis will show plenty of mistakes. But I'm going to assume that neither you or I, or 99.9% of the people here on this site are of the caliber that goes on in the Korean progaming scene. And that's where my focus is at. You're right, I do make plenty of mistakes - more than I'd like to admit. And yes we do need more time to adjust to the game.
But the thing is, advocates with BW background want to reach that awesome balance that includes those "wow" moments ASAP because then we can all play the same game and get better, as opposed to waiting 5-10 years for the patches to finally come through. Think back to the beta and I'm sure you had moments when you just thought "what the heck, this part of the game is broken, it needs to be patched" or something of the sort. What we want is that part to be fixed without losing the mass long term appeal that this game could have.
You're 100% correct in saying that "This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it." But SC2 is also 100% an evolution from the original, hence the 2. These suggestions aren't an artificial mean of introducing "clutch", it's very real because it isn't just for show. Whether someone is watching the game or not, doesn't change the fact that getting that perfect storm or emp or whatever off can change the game flow. The reason we say that balance is not an issue is because these are merely ideas that when introduced will need to be balanced. It isn't a copy/paste insert that Plexa has posted up here. It's some awesome theorycrafting.
We're not expecting these ideas to be added, without changing the balance in some way; we're hoping that it will allow for less of the game balancing itself, and more of the players balancing each other.
I don't think people just want to play and keep playing BW. If we did, we'd simply go back to playing BW - the game hasn't left. What we want is that same epic game feeling in a game that's already winning in graphics and smoothness. We're trying to add layers to something that we feel like won't have the competitive nature of BW. Even at the upper levels of laddering, I feel that there's much less that you can do to turn a game around.
On July 24 2010 05:10 Fincheronious wrote: You should worry less about fixing a bad situation that you are already in and start thinking about how to avoid a bad situation altogether, and you will start to realize more dynamics in competitive play.
Avoiding a bad situation is all well and good, but it doesn't make for exciting matches for the spectators. What you suggest seems to me to be more like a game of chess; you have to pay attention to your opponent's pieces as well as your own in order to succeed.
However, chess is quite boring to watch because of the subtleties of the moves. Unless your understanding of chess is on par with the people playing it, you won't have a lot of fun watching it simply because you won't understand what's going on. Putting more emphasis on preparation for your opponent also creates a system where once you are behind, it's very hard to win unless your opponent makes a mistake. I'm not saying preparation isn't or shouldn't be important, but it should be on par with spur-of-the-moment tactics.
Starcraft should be a game of hard counters on paper, soft counters in practice. This lets players emphasize on preparation by using good counters to what their opponent builds, but the opponent can still fight back, instead of getting completely obliterated.
We want this depth because it gives us hope. Hope in the eternal evolution of this game and hope in individual games. And when you look at humanity, that's a lot of what we're looking for... some sort of hope to keep us going.
I don't agree with almost any of the proposed changes, there's a reason units in RTS games don't have casting times, this isn't world of warcraft, and realistically none of the mechanics you mentioned need to be changed at all.
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: [quote]
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.
The game is not boring. It is not boring to watch and it is not boring to play. It already takes a heavy toll on your mind. You can CLEARLY see when you screwed up someone in some way or another. You can see sloppy play, you can clearly see mistakes in macro, in unit composition and a lot of mid battle micro.
What you said in the end of your post nailed it: you need more time to adjust to the game. This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it. The suggestions made are an artificial mean of introducing some "cluch" and states that "balance is not the issue here".
But you CANT change some core game mechanics and expect to not throw balance out of the window. Beta is over, it took many months of tweaking to achieve some form of balance. We will get dozens of patches until the game is fixed but right now it is AT LEAST playable and I dont think anyone disagrees on that.
Truth is people just want to play and keep playing BW. I have seen some excelent SC2 games already, some of wich are way better than most BW I've seen. I find funny that people want to add layers on something they still don't understand.
This is the last time I'm going to reply to this thread because at this point I feel like we're just repeating ourselves, and other people can do that. I never said it was boring. The perspectives we're taking are clearly different. You're looking from a gamer's perspective, and I can respect that. SC2 is by no means a boring game, neither in watching or playing - for now. It does take a heavy toll on your mind and replay analysis will show plenty of mistakes. But I'm going to assume that neither you or I, or 99.9% of the people here on this site are of the caliber that goes on in the Korean progaming scene. And that's where my focus is at. You're right, I do make plenty of mistakes - more than I'd like to admit. And yes we do need more time to adjust to the game.
But the thing is, advocates with BW background want to reach that awesome balance that includes those "wow" moments ASAP because then we can all play the same game and get better, as opposed to waiting 5-10 years for the patches to finally come through. Think back to the beta and I'm sure you had moments when you just thought "what the heck, this part of the game is broken, it needs to be patched" or something of the sort. What we want is that part to be fixed without losing the mass long term appeal that this game could have.
You're 100% correct in saying that "This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it." But SC2 is also 100% an evolution from the original, hence the 2. These suggestions aren't an artificial mean of introducing "clutch", it's very real because it isn't just for show. Whether someone is watching the game or not, doesn't change the fact that getting that perfect storm or emp or whatever off can change the game flow. The reason we say that balance is not an issue is because these are merely ideas that when introduced will need to be balanced. It isn't a copy/paste insert that Plexa has posted up here. It's some awesome theorycrafting.
We're not expecting these ideas to be added, without changing the balance in some way; we're hoping that it will allow for less of the game balancing itself, and more of the players balancing each other.
I don't think people just want to play and keep playing BW. If we did, we'd simply go back to playing BW - the game hasn't left. What we want is that same epic game feeling in a game that's already winning in graphics and smoothness. We're trying to add layers to something that we feel like won't have the competitive nature of BW. Even at the upper levels of laddering, I feel that there's much less that you can do to turn a game around.
On July 24 2010 05:10 Fincheronious wrote: You should worry less about fixing a bad situation that you are already in and start thinking about how to avoid a bad situation altogether, and you will start to realize more dynamics in competitive play.
Avoiding a bad situation is all well and good, but it doesn't make for exciting matches for the spectators. What you suggest seems to me to be more like a game of chess; you have to pay attention to your opponent's pieces as well as your own in order to succeed.
However, chess is quite boring to watch because of the subtleties of the moves. Unless your understanding of chess is on par with the people playing it, you won't have a lot of fun watching it simply because you won't understand what's going on. Putting more emphasis on preparation for your opponent also creates a system where once you are behind, it's very hard to win unless your opponent makes a mistake. I'm not saying preparation isn't or shouldn't be important, but it should be on par with spur-of-the-moment tactics.
Starcraft should be a game of hard counters on paper, soft counters in practice. This lets players emphasize on preparation by using good counters to what their opponent builds, but the opponent can still fight back, instead of getting completely obliterated.
We want this depth because it gives us hope. Hope in the eternal evolution of this game and hope in individual games. And when you look at humanity, that's a lot of what we're looking for... some sort of hope to keep us going.
That is the point. You want to add depth to something you haven't reached the bottom of yet. All the main criticism I have read here and from interviews with "top players" focus on the aspect that this game isn't BW. It's just not as clunky. As is EMPs and Storms CAN change battles.
People compare the damage that one storm does but tend to forget that they are not isolated. You have an army to support that. Its like saying one tank can't one shot a Hydra.
And I do know what you mean by Korean Pro Scene and players of that caliber. Problem is that so far what they have shown us is that they too are very very very far from completely mastering the game.
loved the read, i'm gonna start practice my void-ray fazing, probably at 00:30 july 27 and you really opened my eyes with the "wow" factor, how it helps the game and i remember when i saw nony vs moonglade in the HDH invitational, with the phoenixes killing drones!!! - that was a "wow" moment for me. anyway i guess u didn't see theese as "wow" things(?) but i think that the feddback of the HT is almost a "wow" spell, or atleast a potential one as it counters the MMM's togheter with the storm pretty hard and it also "counter" the ghost, but here it all comes down to what unit gets to the other first/unit positioning. i just feels there something there. also i think that the phoenix is a potential "wow"-moment-unit. the gravity beam, the speed and the ability to shoot and move is something i think can be greatly abused by good players, I myself have been able to take down several mutalisk with one phoenix as the mutas needs to speed down before be able to shoot.
Nice post. While reading the article i thought about the following scenario: Lategame T v Z.... There is a terran army including like 5 bc's AND ravens vs a zerg army with a couple of infestors. Neural parasite going of and the terran uses his seeker missiles to snipe the infestors. That creates spell based counters and new main targets during the battle since the zerg player wants to get rid of ravens as fast as possible and the terran player wants to kill infesors as fast as possible. Maybe that forces the zerg player to make more corruptors instead of hydras (since hydras get burned away so easily from bc's and a couple of hellions underneath them) but that would make it easier for the terran ground army to reach the infestors. I don't know exactly how fast corruptors would get killed. I haven't tested it out yet. I'm just playing arround with ideas...
I wonder if a zerg player is able to shoot a seeker missile with a controlled raven or in general can use the controlled units spells. That would also be very fun... firing seeker missiles as zerg into MM armies. Is that possible?
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.
The game is not boring. It is not boring to watch and it is not boring to play. It already takes a heavy toll on your mind. You can CLEARLY see when you screwed up someone in some way or another. You can see sloppy play, you can clearly see mistakes in macro, in unit composition and a lot of mid battle micro.
What you said in the end of your post nailed it: you need more time to adjust to the game. This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it. The suggestions made are an artificial mean of introducing some "cluch" and states that "balance is not the issue here".
But you CANT change some core game mechanics and expect to not throw balance out of the window. Beta is over, it took many months of tweaking to achieve some form of balance. We will get dozens of patches until the game is fixed but right now it is AT LEAST playable and I dont think anyone disagrees on that.
Truth is people just want to play and keep playing BW. I have seen some excelent SC2 games already, some of wich are way better than most BW I've seen. I find funny that people want to add layers on something they still don't understand.
This is the last time I'm going to reply to this thread because at this point I feel like we're just repeating ourselves, and other people can do that. I never said it was boring. The perspectives we're taking are clearly different. You're looking from a gamer's perspective, and I can respect that. SC2 is by no means a boring game, neither in watching or playing - for now. It does take a heavy toll on your mind and replay analysis will show plenty of mistakes. But I'm going to assume that neither you or I, or 99.9% of the people here on this site are of the caliber that goes on in the Korean progaming scene. And that's where my focus is at. You're right, I do make plenty of mistakes - more than I'd like to admit. And yes we do need more time to adjust to the game.
But the thing is, advocates with BW background want to reach that awesome balance that includes those "wow" moments ASAP because then we can all play the same game and get better, as opposed to waiting 5-10 years for the patches to finally come through. Think back to the beta and I'm sure you had moments when you just thought "what the heck, this part of the game is broken, it needs to be patched" or something of the sort. What we want is that part to be fixed without losing the mass long term appeal that this game could have.
You're 100% correct in saying that "This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it." But SC2 is also 100% an evolution from the original, hence the 2. These suggestions aren't an artificial mean of introducing "clutch", it's very real because it isn't just for show. Whether someone is watching the game or not, doesn't change the fact that getting that perfect storm or emp or whatever off can change the game flow. The reason we say that balance is not an issue is because these are merely ideas that when introduced will need to be balanced. It isn't a copy/paste insert that Plexa has posted up here. It's some awesome theorycrafting.
We're not expecting these ideas to be added, without changing the balance in some way; we're hoping that it will allow for less of the game balancing itself, and more of the players balancing each other.
I don't think people just want to play and keep playing BW. If we did, we'd simply go back to playing BW - the game hasn't left. What we want is that same epic game feeling in a game that's already winning in graphics and smoothness. We're trying to add layers to something that we feel like won't have the competitive nature of BW. Even at the upper levels of laddering, I feel that there's much less that you can do to turn a game around.
vAltyR puts it quite well:
On July 25 2010 03:51 vAltyR wrote:
On July 24 2010 05:10 Fincheronious wrote: You should worry less about fixing a bad situation that you are already in and start thinking about how to avoid a bad situation altogether, and you will start to realize more dynamics in competitive play.
Avoiding a bad situation is all well and good, but it doesn't make for exciting matches for the spectators. What you suggest seems to me to be more like a game of chess; you have to pay attention to your opponent's pieces as well as your own in order to succeed.
However, chess is quite boring to watch because of the subtleties of the moves. Unless your understanding of chess is on par with the people playing it, you won't have a lot of fun watching it simply because you won't understand what's going on. Putting more emphasis on preparation for your opponent also creates a system where once you are behind, it's very hard to win unless your opponent makes a mistake. I'm not saying preparation isn't or shouldn't be important, but it should be on par with spur-of-the-moment tactics.
Starcraft should be a game of hard counters on paper, soft counters in practice. This lets players emphasize on preparation by using good counters to what their opponent builds, but the opponent can still fight back, instead of getting completely obliterated.
We want this depth because it gives us hope. Hope in the eternal evolution of this game and hope in individual games. And when you look at humanity, that's a lot of what we're looking for... some sort of hope to keep us going.
That is the point. You want to add depth to something you haven't reached the bottom of yet. All the main criticism I have read here and from interviews with "top players" focus on the aspect that this game isn't BW. It's just not as clunky. As is EMPs and Storms CAN change battles.
People compare the damage that one storm does but tend to forget that they are not isolated. You have an army to support that. Its like saying one tank can't one shot a Hydra.
And I do know what you mean by Korean Pro Scene and players of that caliber. Problem is that so far what they have shown us is that they too are very very very far from completely mastering the game.
Do you really think that SC2 requires any where near the amount of micro, or excitement in games? Balance is one question, but people who even like SC2 have said the game is mainly about unit composition, and due to the intelligent AI, micro doesn't make nearly as much of a difference as it does in BW. SC2 does have skills and abilities that can change battles. But, skills like EMP or Fungal Growth, when pulled off, doesn't make you go "OH MY GOD HE LANDED IT, THIS BATTLE HIS OVER". Skills like that are almost guaranteed to happen since you can't really dodge them (you can prepare to mitigate them before hand by spreading, but thats pretty much it). Battles are decided before they even happen due to positioning and composition.
Brood War is a quality game, so why not try and implement parts of BW that work? Even if people haven't reached the depths of SC2 skill, whats the harm in adding tricks and stuff that would make things more exciting? Don't you want SC2 to be as good as it possibly can be?
I really like this original post a lot! I think that you did a fantastic job of analyzing little techniques to widen the human-human interaction skill gap instead of just saying that something is imbalanced and needs to be tweaked. You have effectively introduced a way to keep game balance almost exactly the same while making it slightly more micro-focused, thereby creating a way for even more skilled players to shine over their competitors. Great innovation and great article - Blizzard should definitely see this! Also, congratulations on your 20,000th post...I'm just a few behind you!
So I just wanted to bring in a suggestion for having a better type of Force Field.
What if Force Fields had health points?
Now I don't know what exact number it would/should have but maybe something around 500 hit points? This is pretty important since it will be this number that allows for a better managable effect.
The idea is that pretty straightforward. In the early game, taking down a never ending Force Field is now possible by attacking it with your army but will still take time. This time will have served its purposes. for example not allowing Zerglings to ram through it but allows for a midsized army to take it down with a fair amount of ease (no endless force fielding your opponents ramp)
Though people might say that this takes away from being able to split an army in half and defend the Protoss main, I believe that it will still have it's uses. If you decide to split off a group of 12 marauders at your ramp, it will still have the same effect since there shouldn't be enough time for the marauders to focus fire the Force Field (500 health points) and just rush up your ramp.
In the mid/lategame the hit points of the Force Field will remain the same but its effect could potentially be worse. For example if a 100 food Roach/Hydralisk army is cut off by Force Fields, you could use the roaches that can't reach the Protoss army to attack the Force Fields and break them. This also allows for the Protoss units to still get free hits except perhaps for maybe less time depending on how well both sides manage their options.
Even in the lategame with a 200 food Roach/Hydralisk army versus the also 200 food Protoss ball of Colussus/Stalkers/Zealots/Sentries can Force Fields still be gamebreaking while being at least somewhat manageable for the Zerg since if 5 Force Fields go down, then the Zerg will be taking them down while the Protoss will still get free hits. This scenario can go in different ways depending if the Zerg enough control to manage the Force Fields without losing too much and how the Protoss maximizes this potentially smaller timing window.
This is just an idea I thought briefly about that I thought could add something beneficial to the game. However, I didn't give it too much indepth thought so feel free to point things out I could have missed regarding balance, etc etc.
I like this idea quite a lot... i mean the health should be high enough to make it quite hard to break it at the beginning... in mid late game you still can separate armies. The ai shouldnt attack forcefields so the player has to destroy them manually. I think currently there are too many situations where the forcefield is abused badly.
Also if the opponent has to destroy the fields as quickly as possible to reunify both players do something... One throws force field in, the orther destroys. It's the same design philosophy as mentioned in the op
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
[quote] 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.
The game is not boring. It is not boring to watch and it is not boring to play. It already takes a heavy toll on your mind. You can CLEARLY see when you screwed up someone in some way or another. You can see sloppy play, you can clearly see mistakes in macro, in unit composition and a lot of mid battle micro.
What you said in the end of your post nailed it: you need more time to adjust to the game. This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it. The suggestions made are an artificial mean of introducing some "cluch" and states that "balance is not the issue here".
But you CANT change some core game mechanics and expect to not throw balance out of the window. Beta is over, it took many months of tweaking to achieve some form of balance. We will get dozens of patches until the game is fixed but right now it is AT LEAST playable and I dont think anyone disagrees on that.
Truth is people just want to play and keep playing BW. I have seen some excelent SC2 games already, some of wich are way better than most BW I've seen. I find funny that people want to add layers on something they still don't understand.
This is the last time I'm going to reply to this thread because at this point I feel like we're just repeating ourselves, and other people can do that. I never said it was boring. The perspectives we're taking are clearly different. You're looking from a gamer's perspective, and I can respect that. SC2 is by no means a boring game, neither in watching or playing - for now. It does take a heavy toll on your mind and replay analysis will show plenty of mistakes. But I'm going to assume that neither you or I, or 99.9% of the people here on this site are of the caliber that goes on in the Korean progaming scene. And that's where my focus is at. You're right, I do make plenty of mistakes - more than I'd like to admit. And yes we do need more time to adjust to the game.
But the thing is, advocates with BW background want to reach that awesome balance that includes those "wow" moments ASAP because then we can all play the same game and get better, as opposed to waiting 5-10 years for the patches to finally come through. Think back to the beta and I'm sure you had moments when you just thought "what the heck, this part of the game is broken, it needs to be patched" or something of the sort. What we want is that part to be fixed without losing the mass long term appeal that this game could have.
You're 100% correct in saying that "This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it." But SC2 is also 100% an evolution from the original, hence the 2. These suggestions aren't an artificial mean of introducing "clutch", it's very real because it isn't just for show. Whether someone is watching the game or not, doesn't change the fact that getting that perfect storm or emp or whatever off can change the game flow. The reason we say that balance is not an issue is because these are merely ideas that when introduced will need to be balanced. It isn't a copy/paste insert that Plexa has posted up here. It's some awesome theorycrafting.
We're not expecting these ideas to be added, without changing the balance in some way; we're hoping that it will allow for less of the game balancing itself, and more of the players balancing each other.
I don't think people just want to play and keep playing BW. If we did, we'd simply go back to playing BW - the game hasn't left. What we want is that same epic game feeling in a game that's already winning in graphics and smoothness. We're trying to add layers to something that we feel like won't have the competitive nature of BW. Even at the upper levels of laddering, I feel that there's much less that you can do to turn a game around.
vAltyR puts it quite well:
On July 25 2010 03:51 vAltyR wrote:
On July 24 2010 05:10 Fincheronious wrote: You should worry less about fixing a bad situation that you are already in and start thinking about how to avoid a bad situation altogether, and you will start to realize more dynamics in competitive play.
Avoiding a bad situation is all well and good, but it doesn't make for exciting matches for the spectators. What you suggest seems to me to be more like a game of chess; you have to pay attention to your opponent's pieces as well as your own in order to succeed.
However, chess is quite boring to watch because of the subtleties of the moves. Unless your understanding of chess is on par with the people playing it, you won't have a lot of fun watching it simply because you won't understand what's going on. Putting more emphasis on preparation for your opponent also creates a system where once you are behind, it's very hard to win unless your opponent makes a mistake. I'm not saying preparation isn't or shouldn't be important, but it should be on par with spur-of-the-moment tactics.
Starcraft should be a game of hard counters on paper, soft counters in practice. This lets players emphasize on preparation by using good counters to what their opponent builds, but the opponent can still fight back, instead of getting completely obliterated.
We want this depth because it gives us hope. Hope in the eternal evolution of this game and hope in individual games. And when you look at humanity, that's a lot of what we're looking for... some sort of hope to keep us going.
That is the point. You want to add depth to something you haven't reached the bottom of yet. All the main criticism I have read here and from interviews with "top players" focus on the aspect that this game isn't BW. It's just not as clunky. As is EMPs and Storms CAN change battles.
People compare the damage that one storm does but tend to forget that they are not isolated. You have an army to support that. Its like saying one tank can't one shot a Hydra.
And I do know what you mean by Korean Pro Scene and players of that caliber. Problem is that so far what they have shown us is that they too are very very very far from completely mastering the game.
Do you really think that SC2 requires any where near the amount of micro, or excitement in games? Balance is one question, but people who even like SC2 have said the game is mainly about unit composition, and due to the intelligent AI, micro doesn't make nearly as much of a difference as it does in BW. SC2 does have skills and abilities that can change battles. But, skills like EMP or Fungal Growth, when pulled off, doesn't make you go "OH MY GOD HE LANDED IT, THIS BATTLE HIS OVER". Skills like that are almost guaranteed to happen since you can't really dodge them (you can prepare to mitigate them before hand by spreading, but thats pretty much it). Battles are decided before they even happen due to positioning and composition.
Brood War is a quality game, so why not try and implement parts of BW that work? Even if people haven't reached the depths of SC2 skill, whats the harm in adding tricks and stuff that would make things more exciting? Don't you want SC2 to be as good as it possibly can be?
Unit AI have different priorities in a battle. You probably noticed that as it is quite obvious. If you don't focus fire and let your whatever do their thing they can end up killing all medivacs and getting raped by the remaining ground army.
If you DO manage to micro around and focus on a more dangerous target you have to worry about the position of your army and actually getting in range do fire. How many times you see a low ranged immortal dance around like idiots because there is a wall of stalkers? TOP TIER gamers doing that, mind you.
How often you see "one control group syndrome"? How many times have you seen someone blink stalkers one by one to micro them out of harm? How many times have you seen a proper use and harass using reapers that are fast as hell?
Players are learning to deal with a lot of things and I like to watch SC2 much more than BW games. Anyone can learn unit compositions and timings but its another story to pull off with the units you have.
Why not try to implement parts of BW that work? Because its SC2, not BW. The harm of adding tricks and stuff is rebalancing everything to accomodate these changes. Sometimes veterans seem scared that because the game is a little friendlier to the "noob" that it doesn't have depth.
On July 25 2010 10:10 milkywaywu wrote: So I just wanted to bring in a suggestion for having a better type of Force Field.
What if Force Fields had health points?
Now I don't know what exact number it would/should have but maybe something around 500 hit points? This is pretty important since it will be this number that allows for a better managable effect.
The idea is that pretty straightforward. In the early game, taking down a never ending Force Field is now possible by attacking it with your army but will still take time. This time will have served its purposes. for example not allowing Zerglings to ram through it but allows for a midsized army to take it down with a fair amount of ease (no endless force fielding your opponents ramp)
Though people might say that this takes away from being able to split an army in half and defend the Protoss main, I believe that it will still have it's uses. If you decide to split off a group of 12 marauders at your ramp, it will still have the same effect since there shouldn't be enough time for the marauders to focus fire the Force Field (500 health points) and just rush up your ramp.
In the mid/lategame the hit points of the Force Field will remain the same but its effect could potentially be worse. For example if a 100 food Roach/Hydralisk army is cut off by Force Fields, you could use the roaches that can't reach the Protoss army to attack the Force Fields and break them. This also allows for the Protoss units to still get free hits except perhaps for maybe less time depending on how well both sides manage their options.
Even in the lategame with a 200 food Roach/Hydralisk army versus the also 200 food Protoss ball of Colussus/Stalkers/Zealots/Sentries can Force Fields still be gamebreaking while being at least somewhat manageable for the Zerg since if 5 Force Fields go down, then the Zerg will be taking them down while the Protoss will still get free hits. This scenario can go in different ways depending if the Zerg enough control to manage the Force Fields without losing too much and how the Protoss maximizes this potentially smaller timing window.
This is just an idea I thought briefly about that I thought could add something beneficial to the game. However, I didn't give it too much indepth thought so feel free to point things out I could have missed regarding balance, etc etc.
When I first saw the force field on one of those crazy Blizzard videos the first thing I thought was "cool he force fields me and I have to take it down so I can push".
Making it unbreakable really blew my mind. And even lategame having a force field that your enemy has to break is already a huge advantage as the focus is not on your units.
The void fazing is very interesting and im curious to see what kind of other little tricks will be discovered in the future to make for more "wow" factors
I agree with most of the points made in the OP. However, I disagree about the force-field. Some (Artosis) claim that it is overpowered already. I happen to agree with him- it is an impassable barrier which is the bane of banelings, and has singlehandedly given the match to the Protoss player in games like Idra vs Tester on scrap station. Remember?
I'm sorry, but I found your article a little bit too Protoss sided. "An obvious aspect of the Void Ray is that once charged, it’s ridiculously powerful"," my control isn’t even good, it isn’t hard to envision what a better Protoss like White-Ra would be able to do with this" and the reason it is not to powerfull is: " but the Terran can split his marines up". Really? an "skilled" player would still faze all the Marines to death and theProtoss player need way less micro clicking on the different units than the Terran to spread them. "The Guardian Shield ability fits the criteria of a “wow” spell, however it’s damage reduction at the moment is not significant enough for it to truly make the sentry a target in battle.Suppose that Guardian Shields were tweaked to block out EMPs. This would give Protoss have a viable way to negate the EMP through good control without changing the speed of the missile" "Your opponent is completely helpless to defend against it [ForceField], but that’s fine" " Force Fielding well will give you an edge, but it will be a slight edge"
But on the other Hand all the non-Protoss units and abilities should be changed: "Adding cast time to the spell means that the Terran has an opportunity to react to the fungal growth – he can run and avoid it or he can try and snipe the Infestor before the spell has been cast". " not like a Fungal Growth which paralyses your units and deals 36 damage, that's a battle changing ability. " Or: "Simply slowing down how fast the EMP missile travels so that it is feasible for a Protoss to dodge it" Or: " Simply adjusting the baneling so that it deals less damage when killed"
So what your Post is saying: "Give the Protoss even more tools and take away the annoying tools of the other races."
I dont want to attack you in any way, but even if its a "Design" Suggestion, if you only give one race and take from all the others, it can not be any good.
How about the Terran Ghost eliminating with his EMP ForceFields or Storm? A Sentrys Guardian shield should not block an EMP Missle, but rather the EMP should disable the Guardian Shield (without harming the units inside). What about a new Zerg ability like a Ultralisk ram attack or some kind of leap attack for Zerglings?
Your Designs would break the game back to the alpha stage. I'm sorry but I can't agree with you
P.S. another thing to mention: If Guardian Shield would Block slowed down EMPs you would need to increase the effectiveness of EMPs to compensate with that. But with better EMPs Terrans would most likely always go for Ghost and Protoss would have no other way than to go for Sentries to block them. That way you would force the PvT to be played the same, in every game :/. Or just think about the defiler in sc1 (i know sc2 is a different game). All his spells were instant. But it was still pretty "PLAGUUUUUEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!" (aka "wow") when it hit good. The same thing applys for The infestor :/
On July 25 2010 23:40 Arakash wrote: I'm sorry, but I found your article a little bit too Protoss sided. "An obvious aspect of the Void Ray is that once charged, it’s ridiculously powerful"," my control isn’t even good, it isn’t hard to envision what a better Protoss like White-Ra would be able to do with this" and the reason it is not to powerfull is: " but the Terran can split his marines up". Really? an "skilled" player would still faze all the Marines to death and theProtoss player need way less micro clicking on the different units than the Terran to spread them. "The Guardian Shield ability fits the criteria of a “wow” spell, however it’s damage reduction at the moment is not significant enough for it to truly make the sentry a target in battle.Suppose that Guardian Shields were tweaked to block out EMPs. This would give Protoss have a viable way to negate the EMP through good control without changing the speed of the missile" "Your opponent is completely helpless to defend against it [ForceField], but that’s fine" " Force Fielding well will give you an edge, but it will be a slight edge"
But on the other Hand all the non-Protoss units and abilities should be changed: "Adding cast time to the spell means that the Terran has an opportunity to react to the fungal growth – he can run and avoid it or he can try and snipe the Infestor before the spell has been cast". " not like a Fungal Growth which paralyses your units and deals 36 damage, that's a battle changing ability. " Or: "Simply slowing down how fast the EMP missile travels so that it is feasible for a Protoss to dodge it" Or: " Simply adjusting the baneling so that it deals less damage when killed"
So what your Post is saying: "Give the Protoss even more tools and take away the annoying tools of the other races."
I dont want to attack you in any way, but even if its a "Design" Suggestion, if you only give one race and take from all the others, it can not be any good.
How about the Terran Ghost eliminating with his EMP ForceFields or Storm? A Sentrys Guardian shield should not block an EMP Missle, but rather the EMP should disable the Guardian Shield (without harming the units inside). What about a new Zerg ability like a Ultralisk ram attack or some kind of leap attack for Zerglings?
Your Designs would break the game back to the alpha stage. I'm sorry but I can't agree with you
P.S. another thing to mention: If Guardian Shield would Block slowed down EMPs you would need to increase the effectiveness of EMPs to compensate with that. But with better EMPs Terrans would most likely always go for Ghost and Protoss would have no other way than to go for Sentries to block them. That way you would force the PvT to be played the same, in every game :/.
He didn't suggest to buff Protoss, but suggested to change some abilities to make a battle more skill based and I think this would be pretty good. EMP is a pretty damm strong skill and there is no reason the opponent shouldn't be able to do something against it (same for Fungal).
Or just think about the defiler in sc1 (i know sc2 is a different game). All his spells were instant. But it was still pretty "PLAGUUUUUEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!" (aka "wow") when it hit good. The same thing applys for The infestor :/
Lol, same argument for EMP not being instant, like it was in BW.
As Starcraft as a spectator ESport grows, these *wow* moments is what will make or break games in the eyes of the spectator. Players with near flawless macro and timing are fun to watch, but the real excitement comes from creative unit control and fresh tactics. One of the reasons TLO has such a massive fanbase is because of the excitement he brings to games.
Nice read (: How about feedback tho? I think it has a pretty interesting dynamic, feedback on ghosts before you get EMP'd, or against infestors before a fungal growth/mind control on key units, or even against thors/battle cruisers. Maybe I'm wrong, I probably haven't been following SC2 as much as most people here, but it seems like a skill that has potential to make more dynamic games.
Or just think about the defiler in sc1 (i know sc2 is a different game). All his spells were instant. But it was still pretty "PLAGUUUUUEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!" (aka "wow") when it hit good. The same thing applys for The infestor :/
Lol, same argument for EMP not being instant, like it was in BW.
Yeah you are right, but the EMP is an just example of the "wow" effect with an projectile ability (on which I agree, you get wow effects with non-instant abilities too). But the point of my Comarison was to show, that you can get a "wow" effect without the need to make it non-instant.
that fazing plus harras video was very interesting its cool that blizzard takes notes on this and they leave it in, the "wow" factor was the thing that made BW such a game. The players that show this wow factor have always had a lot of fans and the videos and replays are always fun to watch. Time will tell if there will be new and exciting ways to cast spells or attack that will bring this wow factor, SC2 as it is its one of the best RTS ever made but is a long way to get to the pinnacle of RTS which is BW, remember that BW is an expansion and the next 2 expansions can totally alter the way the game is played (Lurkers, DT´s, medics and corsairs anyone?), the addition of a few units can re arrange build orders, timings, and the way the units move and attack. Plexa as always your articles are top notch and congrats on your 20K posts!!
The unwillingness of Terran to build turrets is a partial contribution to the power of Void Rays Granted, since i hardly ran into turrets in PvT i can't say for certain how effective they are, but i know for certain i avoided them A couple well placed turrets will make void ray harass much more difficult and gives times for marines to get in range if the toss insists on busting through On the other hand, it slows down terran pushes and the like, which imo isn't a bad thing right now, since i find early game terran a bit too powerful
Its a bit like in brood war. 1 shuttle with a reaver and 2 zealots in a terran base with no turrets could easily win the game. Easily take out 2-3 tanks, a couple vultures, and destroy mining capabilities. Careful turret placing neutralized this ability. Of course, there are differences, but these are just some of my preliminary thoughts
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.
The game is not boring. It is not boring to watch and it is not boring to play. It already takes a heavy toll on your mind. You can CLEARLY see when you screwed up someone in some way or another. You can see sloppy play, you can clearly see mistakes in macro, in unit composition and a lot of mid battle micro.
What you said in the end of your post nailed it: you need more time to adjust to the game. This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it. The suggestions made are an artificial mean of introducing some "cluch" and states that "balance is not the issue here".
But you CANT change some core game mechanics and expect to not throw balance out of the window. Beta is over, it took many months of tweaking to achieve some form of balance. We will get dozens of patches until the game is fixed but right now it is AT LEAST playable and I dont think anyone disagrees on that.
Truth is people just want to play and keep playing BW. I have seen some excelent SC2 games already, some of wich are way better than most BW I've seen. I find funny that people want to add layers on something they still don't understand.
This is the last time I'm going to reply to this thread because at this point I feel like we're just repeating ourselves, and other people can do that. I never said it was boring. The perspectives we're taking are clearly different. You're looking from a gamer's perspective, and I can respect that. SC2 is by no means a boring game, neither in watching or playing - for now. It does take a heavy toll on your mind and replay analysis will show plenty of mistakes. But I'm going to assume that neither you or I, or 99.9% of the people here on this site are of the caliber that goes on in the Korean progaming scene. And that's where my focus is at. You're right, I do make plenty of mistakes - more than I'd like to admit. And yes we do need more time to adjust to the game.
But the thing is, advocates with BW background want to reach that awesome balance that includes those "wow" moments ASAP because then we can all play the same game and get better, as opposed to waiting 5-10 years for the patches to finally come through. Think back to the beta and I'm sure you had moments when you just thought "what the heck, this part of the game is broken, it needs to be patched" or something of the sort. What we want is that part to be fixed without losing the mass long term appeal that this game could have.
You're 100% correct in saying that "This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it." But SC2 is also 100% an evolution from the original, hence the 2. These suggestions aren't an artificial mean of introducing "clutch", it's very real because it isn't just for show. Whether someone is watching the game or not, doesn't change the fact that getting that perfect storm or emp or whatever off can change the game flow. The reason we say that balance is not an issue is because these are merely ideas that when introduced will need to be balanced. It isn't a copy/paste insert that Plexa has posted up here. It's some awesome theorycrafting.
We're not expecting these ideas to be added, without changing the balance in some way; we're hoping that it will allow for less of the game balancing itself, and more of the players balancing each other.
I don't think people just want to play and keep playing BW. If we did, we'd simply go back to playing BW - the game hasn't left. What we want is that same epic game feeling in a game that's already winning in graphics and smoothness. We're trying to add layers to something that we feel like won't have the competitive nature of BW. Even at the upper levels of laddering, I feel that there's much less that you can do to turn a game around.
vAltyR puts it quite well:
On July 25 2010 03:51 vAltyR wrote:
On July 24 2010 05:10 Fincheronious wrote: You should worry less about fixing a bad situation that you are already in and start thinking about how to avoid a bad situation altogether, and you will start to realize more dynamics in competitive play.
Avoiding a bad situation is all well and good, but it doesn't make for exciting matches for the spectators. What you suggest seems to me to be more like a game of chess; you have to pay attention to your opponent's pieces as well as your own in order to succeed.
However, chess is quite boring to watch because of the subtleties of the moves. Unless your understanding of chess is on par with the people playing it, you won't have a lot of fun watching it simply because you won't understand what's going on. Putting more emphasis on preparation for your opponent also creates a system where once you are behind, it's very hard to win unless your opponent makes a mistake. I'm not saying preparation isn't or shouldn't be important, but it should be on par with spur-of-the-moment tactics.
Starcraft should be a game of hard counters on paper, soft counters in practice. This lets players emphasize on preparation by using good counters to what their opponent builds, but the opponent can still fight back, instead of getting completely obliterated.
We want this depth because it gives us hope. Hope in the eternal evolution of this game and hope in individual games. And when you look at humanity, that's a lot of what we're looking for... some sort of hope to keep us going.
That is the point. You want to add depth to something you haven't reached the bottom of yet. All the main criticism I have read here and from interviews with "top players" focus on the aspect that this game isn't BW. It's just not as clunky. As is EMPs and Storms CAN change battles.
People compare the damage that one storm does but tend to forget that they are not isolated. You have an army to support that. Its like saying one tank can't one shot a Hydra.
And I do know what you mean by Korean Pro Scene and players of that caliber. Problem is that so far what they have shown us is that they too are very very very far from completely mastering the game.
Do you really think that SC2 requires any where near the amount of micro, or excitement in games? Balance is one question, but people who even like SC2 have said the game is mainly about unit composition, and due to the intelligent AI, micro doesn't make nearly as much of a difference as it does in BW. SC2 does have skills and abilities that can change battles. But, skills like EMP or Fungal Growth, when pulled off, doesn't make you go "OH MY GOD HE LANDED IT, THIS BATTLE HIS OVER". Skills like that are almost guaranteed to happen since you can't really dodge them (you can prepare to mitigate them before hand by spreading, but thats pretty much it). Battles are decided before they even happen due to positioning and composition.
Brood War is a quality game, so why not try and implement parts of BW that work? Even if people haven't reached the depths of SC2 skill, whats the harm in adding tricks and stuff that would make things more exciting? Don't you want SC2 to be as good as it possibly can be?
Unit AI have different priorities in a battle. You probably noticed that as it is quite obvious. If you don't focus fire and let your whatever do their thing they can end up killing all medivacs and getting raped by the remaining ground army.
If you DO manage to micro around and focus on a more dangerous target you have to worry about the position of your army and actually getting in range do fire. How many times you see a low ranged immortal dance around like idiots because there is a wall of stalkers? TOP TIER gamers doing that, mind you.
How often you see "one control group syndrome"? How many times have you seen someone blink stalkers one by one to micro them out of harm? How many times have you seen a proper use and harass using reapers that are fast as hell?
Players are learning to deal with a lot of things and I like to watch SC2 much more than BW games. Anyone can learn unit compositions and timings but its another story to pull off with the units you have.
Why not try to implement parts of BW that work? Because its SC2, not BW. The harm of adding tricks and stuff is rebalancing everything to accomodate these changes. Sometimes veterans seem scared that because the game is a little friendlier to the "noob" that it doesn't have depth.
Anyone can learn unit composition and timing. And unfortunately, SC2 is much more centered around things like that than BW. It isn't even up for debate, IMO.
You talk about an immortal dancing around like idiots in SC2 because Stalkers are in front. So, uhhhh, lets say that all those stalkers were retarded too (lets say they are infinitely more retarded), and your zealots were also too stupid to run around the Stalkers when attacking? AI control issues were worse on so many levels in BW, and the fact that they aren't as bad in SC2 simply reduces the amount of micro you actually need to do in battles. Its just a fact. Focus firing, positioning, composition, all that stuff exists in both games. Except in one game, it requires alot more effort due to interface and unit AI. Therefore, since that aspect is made easier, the game obviously would focus more on the elements of composition and positioning.
God forbid things be done extremely early in a game's life to make it more exciting, because you might have to balance it! The game is going be going through balance changes for at LEAST the next 2 years, so it doesn't even matter. And its not like it would even take a whole lot of number changing to even balance the suggestions in the OP. "The game is SC2, not BW"? What sort of argument is that? I'm sick and tired of seeing people say that. Its a simple question you have to ask yourself: Do you want SC2 to be as good as it possibly can be? If you do, then there is no harm at all in adopting aspects of BW that contribute to its greatness.
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.
The game is not boring. It is not boring to watch and it is not boring to play. It already takes a heavy toll on your mind. You can CLEARLY see when you screwed up someone in some way or another. You can see sloppy play, you can clearly see mistakes in macro, in unit composition and a lot of mid battle micro.
What you said in the end of your post nailed it: you need more time to adjust to the game. This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it. The suggestions made are an artificial mean of introducing some "cluch" and states that "balance is not the issue here".
But you CANT change some core game mechanics and expect to not throw balance out of the window. Beta is over, it took many months of tweaking to achieve some form of balance. We will get dozens of patches until the game is fixed but right now it is AT LEAST playable and I dont think anyone disagrees on that.
Truth is people just want to play and keep playing BW. I have seen some excelent SC2 games already, some of wich are way better than most BW I've seen. I find funny that people want to add layers on something they still don't understand.
This is the last time I'm going to reply to this thread because at this point I feel like we're just repeating ourselves, and other people can do that. I never said it was boring. The perspectives we're taking are clearly different. You're looking from a gamer's perspective, and I can respect that. SC2 is by no means a boring game, neither in watching or playing - for now. It does take a heavy toll on your mind and replay analysis will show plenty of mistakes. But I'm going to assume that neither you or I, or 99.9% of the people here on this site are of the caliber that goes on in the Korean progaming scene. And that's where my focus is at. You're right, I do make plenty of mistakes - more than I'd like to admit. And yes we do need more time to adjust to the game.
But the thing is, advocates with BW background want to reach that awesome balance that includes those "wow" moments ASAP because then we can all play the same game and get better, as opposed to waiting 5-10 years for the patches to finally come through. Think back to the beta and I'm sure you had moments when you just thought "what the heck, this part of the game is broken, it needs to be patched" or something of the sort. What we want is that part to be fixed without losing the mass long term appeal that this game could have.
You're 100% correct in saying that "This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it." But SC2 is also 100% an evolution from the original, hence the 2. These suggestions aren't an artificial mean of introducing "clutch", it's very real because it isn't just for show. Whether someone is watching the game or not, doesn't change the fact that getting that perfect storm or emp or whatever off can change the game flow. The reason we say that balance is not an issue is because these are merely ideas that when introduced will need to be balanced. It isn't a copy/paste insert that Plexa has posted up here. It's some awesome theorycrafting.
We're not expecting these ideas to be added, without changing the balance in some way; we're hoping that it will allow for less of the game balancing itself, and more of the players balancing each other.
I don't think people just want to play and keep playing BW. If we did, we'd simply go back to playing BW - the game hasn't left. What we want is that same epic game feeling in a game that's already winning in graphics and smoothness. We're trying to add layers to something that we feel like won't have the competitive nature of BW. Even at the upper levels of laddering, I feel that there's much less that you can do to turn a game around.
vAltyR puts it quite well:
On July 25 2010 03:51 vAltyR wrote:
On July 24 2010 05:10 Fincheronious wrote: You should worry less about fixing a bad situation that you are already in and start thinking about how to avoid a bad situation altogether, and you will start to realize more dynamics in competitive play.
Avoiding a bad situation is all well and good, but it doesn't make for exciting matches for the spectators. What you suggest seems to me to be more like a game of chess; you have to pay attention to your opponent's pieces as well as your own in order to succeed.
However, chess is quite boring to watch because of the subtleties of the moves. Unless your understanding of chess is on par with the people playing it, you won't have a lot of fun watching it simply because you won't understand what's going on. Putting more emphasis on preparation for your opponent also creates a system where once you are behind, it's very hard to win unless your opponent makes a mistake. I'm not saying preparation isn't or shouldn't be important, but it should be on par with spur-of-the-moment tactics.
Starcraft should be a game of hard counters on paper, soft counters in practice. This lets players emphasize on preparation by using good counters to what their opponent builds, but the opponent can still fight back, instead of getting completely obliterated.
We want this depth because it gives us hope. Hope in the eternal evolution of this game and hope in individual games. And when you look at humanity, that's a lot of what we're looking for... some sort of hope to keep us going.
That is the point. You want to add depth to something you haven't reached the bottom of yet. All the main criticism I have read here and from interviews with "top players" focus on the aspect that this game isn't BW. It's just not as clunky. As is EMPs and Storms CAN change battles.
People compare the damage that one storm does but tend to forget that they are not isolated. You have an army to support that. Its like saying one tank can't one shot a Hydra.
And I do know what you mean by Korean Pro Scene and players of that caliber. Problem is that so far what they have shown us is that they too are very very very far from completely mastering the game.
Do you really think that SC2 requires any where near the amount of micro, or excitement in games? Balance is one question, but people who even like SC2 have said the game is mainly about unit composition, and due to the intelligent AI, micro doesn't make nearly as much of a difference as it does in BW. SC2 does have skills and abilities that can change battles. But, skills like EMP or Fungal Growth, when pulled off, doesn't make you go "OH MY GOD HE LANDED IT, THIS BATTLE HIS OVER". Skills like that are almost guaranteed to happen since you can't really dodge them (you can prepare to mitigate them before hand by spreading, but thats pretty much it). Battles are decided before they even happen due to positioning and composition.
Brood War is a quality game, so why not try and implement parts of BW that work? Even if people haven't reached the depths of SC2 skill, whats the harm in adding tricks and stuff that would make things more exciting? Don't you want SC2 to be as good as it possibly can be?
Unit AI have different priorities in a battle. You probably noticed that as it is quite obvious. If you don't focus fire and let your whatever do their thing they can end up killing all medivacs and getting raped by the remaining ground army.
If you DO manage to micro around and focus on a more dangerous target you have to worry about the position of your army and actually getting in range do fire. How many times you see a low ranged immortal dance around like idiots because there is a wall of stalkers? TOP TIER gamers doing that, mind you.
How often you see "one control group syndrome"? How many times have you seen someone blink stalkers one by one to micro them out of harm? How many times have you seen a proper use and harass using reapers that are fast as hell?
Players are learning to deal with a lot of things and I like to watch SC2 much more than BW games. Anyone can learn unit compositions and timings but its another story to pull off with the units you have.
Why not try to implement parts of BW that work? Because its SC2, not BW. The harm of adding tricks and stuff is rebalancing everything to accomodate these changes. Sometimes veterans seem scared that because the game is a little friendlier to the "noob" that it doesn't have depth.
Anyone can learn unit composition and timing. And unfortunately, SC2 is much more centered around things like that than BW. It isn't even up for debate, IMO.
You talk about an immortal dancing around like idiots in SC2 because Stalkers are in front. So, uhhhh, lets say that all those stalkers were retarded too (lets say they are infinitely more retarded), and your zealots were also too stupid to run around the Stalkers when attacking? AI control issues were worse on so many levels in BW, and the fact that they aren't as bad in SC2 simply reduces the amount of micro you actually need to do in battles. Its just a fact. Focus firing, positioning, composition, all that stuff exists in both games. Except in one game, it requires alot more effort due to interface and unit AI. Therefore, since that aspect is made easier, the game obviously would focus more on the elements of composition and positioning.
God forbid things be done extremely early in a game's life to make it more exciting, because you might have to balance it! The game is going be going through balance changes for at LEAST the next 2 years, so it doesn't even matter. And its not like it would even take a whole lot of number changing to even balance the suggestions in the OP. "The game is SC2, not BW"? What sort of argument is that? I'm sick and tired of seeing people say that. Its a simple question you have to ask yourself: Do you want SC2 to be as good as it possibly can be? If you do, then there is no harm at all in adopting aspects of BW that contribute to its greatness.
I don't think you understood what I said in the immortals example. What I meant is that in that particular case the AI, advanced as it is, doesn't matter or influence because you STILL need to properly micro the units in their correct position.
Yes I want SC2 to be as good as it can be, but I do not think adpoting aspects of BW would make it so. It worked in that game but SC2 isn't BW. That argument again. Why is that?
SC2 is clearly faster. Things seem to be a lot more fragile. The "one big huge battle" in a game are played with a LOT more units firing at the same time. SC2 units look a lot smaller on screen (resolution and FOV are increased) so you don't micro in "waves" but in balls. Those proposed changes would slow down caster play making it so that focusing on spells would make it so high risk that you would not bother with that at all.
very interesting article. i feel if blizzard implements at least some of these suggestions in upcoming patches, it would signficiantly increase the longetitvity of sc2's popularity.
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.
The game is not boring. It is not boring to watch and it is not boring to play. It already takes a heavy toll on your mind. You can CLEARLY see when you screwed up someone in some way or another. You can see sloppy play, you can clearly see mistakes in macro, in unit composition and a lot of mid battle micro.
What you said in the end of your post nailed it: you need more time to adjust to the game. This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it. The suggestions made are an artificial mean of introducing some "cluch" and states that "balance is not the issue here".
But you CANT change some core game mechanics and expect to not throw balance out of the window. Beta is over, it took many months of tweaking to achieve some form of balance. We will get dozens of patches until the game is fixed but right now it is AT LEAST playable and I dont think anyone disagrees on that.
Truth is people just want to play and keep playing BW. I have seen some excelent SC2 games already, some of wich are way better than most BW I've seen. I find funny that people want to add layers on something they still don't understand.
This is the last time I'm going to reply to this thread because at this point I feel like we're just repeating ourselves, and other people can do that. I never said it was boring. The perspectives we're taking are clearly different. You're looking from a gamer's perspective, and I can respect that. SC2 is by no means a boring game, neither in watching or playing - for now. It does take a heavy toll on your mind and replay analysis will show plenty of mistakes. But I'm going to assume that neither you or I, or 99.9% of the people here on this site are of the caliber that goes on in the Korean progaming scene. And that's where my focus is at. You're right, I do make plenty of mistakes - more than I'd like to admit. And yes we do need more time to adjust to the game.
But the thing is, advocates with BW background want to reach that awesome balance that includes those "wow" moments ASAP because then we can all play the same game and get better, as opposed to waiting 5-10 years for the patches to finally come through. Think back to the beta and I'm sure you had moments when you just thought "what the heck, this part of the game is broken, it needs to be patched" or something of the sort. What we want is that part to be fixed without losing the mass long term appeal that this game could have.
You're 100% correct in saying that "This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it." But SC2 is also 100% an evolution from the original, hence the 2. These suggestions aren't an artificial mean of introducing "clutch", it's very real because it isn't just for show. Whether someone is watching the game or not, doesn't change the fact that getting that perfect storm or emp or whatever off can change the game flow. The reason we say that balance is not an issue is because these are merely ideas that when introduced will need to be balanced. It isn't a copy/paste insert that Plexa has posted up here. It's some awesome theorycrafting.
We're not expecting these ideas to be added, without changing the balance in some way; we're hoping that it will allow for less of the game balancing itself, and more of the players balancing each other.
I don't think people just want to play and keep playing BW. If we did, we'd simply go back to playing BW - the game hasn't left. What we want is that same epic game feeling in a game that's already winning in graphics and smoothness. We're trying to add layers to something that we feel like won't have the competitive nature of BW. Even at the upper levels of laddering, I feel that there's much less that you can do to turn a game around.
vAltyR puts it quite well:
On July 25 2010 03:51 vAltyR wrote:
On July 24 2010 05:10 Fincheronious wrote: You should worry less about fixing a bad situation that you are already in and start thinking about how to avoid a bad situation altogether, and you will start to realize more dynamics in competitive play.
Avoiding a bad situation is all well and good, but it doesn't make for exciting matches for the spectators. What you suggest seems to me to be more like a game of chess; you have to pay attention to your opponent's pieces as well as your own in order to succeed.
However, chess is quite boring to watch because of the subtleties of the moves. Unless your understanding of chess is on par with the people playing it, you won't have a lot of fun watching it simply because you won't understand what's going on. Putting more emphasis on preparation for your opponent also creates a system where once you are behind, it's very hard to win unless your opponent makes a mistake. I'm not saying preparation isn't or shouldn't be important, but it should be on par with spur-of-the-moment tactics.
Starcraft should be a game of hard counters on paper, soft counters in practice. This lets players emphasize on preparation by using good counters to what their opponent builds, but the opponent can still fight back, instead of getting completely obliterated.
We want this depth because it gives us hope. Hope in the eternal evolution of this game and hope in individual games. And when you look at humanity, that's a lot of what we're looking for... some sort of hope to keep us going.
That is the point. You want to add depth to something you haven't reached the bottom of yet. All the main criticism I have read here and from interviews with "top players" focus on the aspect that this game isn't BW. It's just not as clunky. As is EMPs and Storms CAN change battles.
People compare the damage that one storm does but tend to forget that they are not isolated. You have an army to support that. Its like saying one tank can't one shot a Hydra.
And I do know what you mean by Korean Pro Scene and players of that caliber. Problem is that so far what they have shown us is that they too are very very very far from completely mastering the game.
Do you really think that SC2 requires any where near the amount of micro, or excitement in games? Balance is one question, but people who even like SC2 have said the game is mainly about unit composition, and due to the intelligent AI, micro doesn't make nearly as much of a difference as it does in BW. SC2 does have skills and abilities that can change battles. But, skills like EMP or Fungal Growth, when pulled off, doesn't make you go "OH MY GOD HE LANDED IT, THIS BATTLE HIS OVER". Skills like that are almost guaranteed to happen since you can't really dodge them (you can prepare to mitigate them before hand by spreading, but thats pretty much it). Battles are decided before they even happen due to positioning and composition.
Brood War is a quality game, so why not try and implement parts of BW that work? Even if people haven't reached the depths of SC2 skill, whats the harm in adding tricks and stuff that would make things more exciting? Don't you want SC2 to be as good as it possibly can be?
Unit AI have different priorities in a battle. You probably noticed that as it is quite obvious. If you don't focus fire and let your whatever do their thing they can end up killing all medivacs and getting raped by the remaining ground army.
If you DO manage to micro around and focus on a more dangerous target you have to worry about the position of your army and actually getting in range do fire. How many times you see a low ranged immortal dance around like idiots because there is a wall of stalkers? TOP TIER gamers doing that, mind you.
How often you see "one control group syndrome"? How many times have you seen someone blink stalkers one by one to micro them out of harm? How many times have you seen a proper use and harass using reapers that are fast as hell?
Players are learning to deal with a lot of things and I like to watch SC2 much more than BW games. Anyone can learn unit compositions and timings but its another story to pull off with the units you have.
Why not try to implement parts of BW that work? Because its SC2, not BW. The harm of adding tricks and stuff is rebalancing everything to accomodate these changes. Sometimes veterans seem scared that because the game is a little friendlier to the "noob" that it doesn't have depth.
Anyone can learn unit composition and timing. And unfortunately, SC2 is much more centered around things like that than BW. It isn't even up for debate, IMO.
You talk about an immortal dancing around like idiots in SC2 because Stalkers are in front. So, uhhhh, lets say that all those stalkers were retarded too (lets say they are infinitely more retarded), and your zealots were also too stupid to run around the Stalkers when attacking? AI control issues were worse on so many levels in BW, and the fact that they aren't as bad in SC2 simply reduces the amount of micro you actually need to do in battles. Its just a fact. Focus firing, positioning, composition, all that stuff exists in both games. Except in one game, it requires alot more effort due to interface and unit AI. Therefore, since that aspect is made easier, the game obviously would focus more on the elements of composition and positioning.
God forbid things be done extremely early in a game's life to make it more exciting, because you might have to balance it! The game is going be going through balance changes for at LEAST the next 2 years, so it doesn't even matter. And its not like it would even take a whole lot of number changing to even balance the suggestions in the OP. "The game is SC2, not BW"? What sort of argument is that? I'm sick and tired of seeing people say that. Its a simple question you have to ask yourself: Do you want SC2 to be as good as it possibly can be? If you do, then there is no harm at all in adopting aspects of BW that contribute to its greatness.
I don't think you understood what I said in the immortals example. What I meant is that in that particular case the AI, advanced as it is, doesn't matter or influence because you STILL need to properly micro the units in their correct position.
Yes I want SC2 to be as good as it can be, but I do not think adpoting aspects of BW would make it so. It worked in that game but SC2 isn't BW. That argument again. Why is that?
SC2 is clearly faster. Things seem to be a lot more fragile. The "one big huge battle" in a game are played with a LOT more units firing at the same time. SC2 units look a lot smaller on screen (resolution and FOV are increased) so you don't micro in "waves" but in balls. Those proposed changes would slow down caster play making it so that focusing on spells would make it so high risk that you would not bother with that at all.
Personally, things don't seem more fragile to me. In BW, you had spider mines and Siege tanks killing 100 supply worth of Dragoons in a matter of seconds. You had control groups of hydras exploding from a single storm, or Reaver scarab. People used lings more. Bio TvZ was a battle of two glass armies dueling with each other. Now you have stuff like Roaches, Mauraders, and Immortals, who specialize in not getting killed.
Anyway, I still think you are looking at the proposed changes in a vacuum. Lets say there is more cast time added, to for example, Fungal Growth. Yes, that would make Fungal Growth in its current form, with its current numbers, into a very high risk spell with rewards that don't equal the risk. If the effects of the spell were buffed, then it would balance that out. This game will be undergoing balance changes for at least the next 2 years, so the fact that things are going to be rebalanced and fixed is a given. If the game is going to be made more exciting, and into a game that will truly surpass BW, the things talked about in the OP should be addressed early in the life of the game, so Blizzard has more time to get everything balanced.
I think SC2 just needs some time do find the higher skilled aspect, or "wow" moments of the game. Right now there are some.... But i don't feel the Blizzard should try to force wow moments into the game. Once players standardize some build orders, and play is more redifined SC2 will have alot more room for wow moments.
On July 25 2010 01:06 Falling wrote: [quote] 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.)
[quote]
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.
[quote]
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.
[quote]
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.
The game is not boring. It is not boring to watch and it is not boring to play. It already takes a heavy toll on your mind. You can CLEARLY see when you screwed up someone in some way or another. You can see sloppy play, you can clearly see mistakes in macro, in unit composition and a lot of mid battle micro.
What you said in the end of your post nailed it: you need more time to adjust to the game. This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it. The suggestions made are an artificial mean of introducing some "cluch" and states that "balance is not the issue here".
But you CANT change some core game mechanics and expect to not throw balance out of the window. Beta is over, it took many months of tweaking to achieve some form of balance. We will get dozens of patches until the game is fixed but right now it is AT LEAST playable and I dont think anyone disagrees on that.
Truth is people just want to play and keep playing BW. I have seen some excelent SC2 games already, some of wich are way better than most BW I've seen. I find funny that people want to add layers on something they still don't understand.
This is the last time I'm going to reply to this thread because at this point I feel like we're just repeating ourselves, and other people can do that. I never said it was boring. The perspectives we're taking are clearly different. You're looking from a gamer's perspective, and I can respect that. SC2 is by no means a boring game, neither in watching or playing - for now. It does take a heavy toll on your mind and replay analysis will show plenty of mistakes. But I'm going to assume that neither you or I, or 99.9% of the people here on this site are of the caliber that goes on in the Korean progaming scene. And that's where my focus is at. You're right, I do make plenty of mistakes - more than I'd like to admit. And yes we do need more time to adjust to the game.
But the thing is, advocates with BW background want to reach that awesome balance that includes those "wow" moments ASAP because then we can all play the same game and get better, as opposed to waiting 5-10 years for the patches to finally come through. Think back to the beta and I'm sure you had moments when you just thought "what the heck, this part of the game is broken, it needs to be patched" or something of the sort. What we want is that part to be fixed without losing the mass long term appeal that this game could have.
You're 100% correct in saying that "This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it." But SC2 is also 100% an evolution from the original, hence the 2. These suggestions aren't an artificial mean of introducing "clutch", it's very real because it isn't just for show. Whether someone is watching the game or not, doesn't change the fact that getting that perfect storm or emp or whatever off can change the game flow. The reason we say that balance is not an issue is because these are merely ideas that when introduced will need to be balanced. It isn't a copy/paste insert that Plexa has posted up here. It's some awesome theorycrafting.
We're not expecting these ideas to be added, without changing the balance in some way; we're hoping that it will allow for less of the game balancing itself, and more of the players balancing each other.
I don't think people just want to play and keep playing BW. If we did, we'd simply go back to playing BW - the game hasn't left. What we want is that same epic game feeling in a game that's already winning in graphics and smoothness. We're trying to add layers to something that we feel like won't have the competitive nature of BW. Even at the upper levels of laddering, I feel that there's much less that you can do to turn a game around.
vAltyR puts it quite well:
On July 25 2010 03:51 vAltyR wrote:
On July 24 2010 05:10 Fincheronious wrote: You should worry less about fixing a bad situation that you are already in and start thinking about how to avoid a bad situation altogether, and you will start to realize more dynamics in competitive play.
Avoiding a bad situation is all well and good, but it doesn't make for exciting matches for the spectators. What you suggest seems to me to be more like a game of chess; you have to pay attention to your opponent's pieces as well as your own in order to succeed.
However, chess is quite boring to watch because of the subtleties of the moves. Unless your understanding of chess is on par with the people playing it, you won't have a lot of fun watching it simply because you won't understand what's going on. Putting more emphasis on preparation for your opponent also creates a system where once you are behind, it's very hard to win unless your opponent makes a mistake. I'm not saying preparation isn't or shouldn't be important, but it should be on par with spur-of-the-moment tactics.
Starcraft should be a game of hard counters on paper, soft counters in practice. This lets players emphasize on preparation by using good counters to what their opponent builds, but the opponent can still fight back, instead of getting completely obliterated.
We want this depth because it gives us hope. Hope in the eternal evolution of this game and hope in individual games. And when you look at humanity, that's a lot of what we're looking for... some sort of hope to keep us going.
That is the point. You want to add depth to something you haven't reached the bottom of yet. All the main criticism I have read here and from interviews with "top players" focus on the aspect that this game isn't BW. It's just not as clunky. As is EMPs and Storms CAN change battles.
People compare the damage that one storm does but tend to forget that they are not isolated. You have an army to support that. Its like saying one tank can't one shot a Hydra.
And I do know what you mean by Korean Pro Scene and players of that caliber. Problem is that so far what they have shown us is that they too are very very very far from completely mastering the game.
Do you really think that SC2 requires any where near the amount of micro, or excitement in games? Balance is one question, but people who even like SC2 have said the game is mainly about unit composition, and due to the intelligent AI, micro doesn't make nearly as much of a difference as it does in BW. SC2 does have skills and abilities that can change battles. But, skills like EMP or Fungal Growth, when pulled off, doesn't make you go "OH MY GOD HE LANDED IT, THIS BATTLE HIS OVER". Skills like that are almost guaranteed to happen since you can't really dodge them (you can prepare to mitigate them before hand by spreading, but thats pretty much it). Battles are decided before they even happen due to positioning and composition.
Brood War is a quality game, so why not try and implement parts of BW that work? Even if people haven't reached the depths of SC2 skill, whats the harm in adding tricks and stuff that would make things more exciting? Don't you want SC2 to be as good as it possibly can be?
Unit AI have different priorities in a battle. You probably noticed that as it is quite obvious. If you don't focus fire and let your whatever do their thing they can end up killing all medivacs and getting raped by the remaining ground army.
If you DO manage to micro around and focus on a more dangerous target you have to worry about the position of your army and actually getting in range do fire. How many times you see a low ranged immortal dance around like idiots because there is a wall of stalkers? TOP TIER gamers doing that, mind you.
How often you see "one control group syndrome"? How many times have you seen someone blink stalkers one by one to micro them out of harm? How many times have you seen a proper use and harass using reapers that are fast as hell?
Players are learning to deal with a lot of things and I like to watch SC2 much more than BW games. Anyone can learn unit compositions and timings but its another story to pull off with the units you have.
Why not try to implement parts of BW that work? Because its SC2, not BW. The harm of adding tricks and stuff is rebalancing everything to accomodate these changes. Sometimes veterans seem scared that because the game is a little friendlier to the "noob" that it doesn't have depth.
Anyone can learn unit composition and timing. And unfortunately, SC2 is much more centered around things like that than BW. It isn't even up for debate, IMO.
You talk about an immortal dancing around like idiots in SC2 because Stalkers are in front. So, uhhhh, lets say that all those stalkers were retarded too (lets say they are infinitely more retarded), and your zealots were also too stupid to run around the Stalkers when attacking? AI control issues were worse on so many levels in BW, and the fact that they aren't as bad in SC2 simply reduces the amount of micro you actually need to do in battles. Its just a fact. Focus firing, positioning, composition, all that stuff exists in both games. Except in one game, it requires alot more effort due to interface and unit AI. Therefore, since that aspect is made easier, the game obviously would focus more on the elements of composition and positioning.
God forbid things be done extremely early in a game's life to make it more exciting, because you might have to balance it! The game is going be going through balance changes for at LEAST the next 2 years, so it doesn't even matter. And its not like it would even take a whole lot of number changing to even balance the suggestions in the OP. "The game is SC2, not BW"? What sort of argument is that? I'm sick and tired of seeing people say that. Its a simple question you have to ask yourself: Do you want SC2 to be as good as it possibly can be? If you do, then there is no harm at all in adopting aspects of BW that contribute to its greatness.
I don't think you understood what I said in the immortals example. What I meant is that in that particular case the AI, advanced as it is, doesn't matter or influence because you STILL need to properly micro the units in their correct position.
Yes I want SC2 to be as good as it can be, but I do not think adpoting aspects of BW would make it so. It worked in that game but SC2 isn't BW. That argument again. Why is that?
SC2 is clearly faster. Things seem to be a lot more fragile. The "one big huge battle" in a game are played with a LOT more units firing at the same time. SC2 units look a lot smaller on screen (resolution and FOV are increased) so you don't micro in "waves" but in balls. Those proposed changes would slow down caster play making it so that focusing on spells would make it so high risk that you would not bother with that at all.
Personally, things don't seem more fragile to me. In BW, you had spider mines and Siege tanks killing 100 supply worth of Dragoons in a matter of seconds. You had control groups of hydras exploding from a single storm, or Reaver scarab. People used lings more. Bio TvZ was a battle of two glass armies dueling with each other. Now you have stuff like Roaches, Mauraders, and Immortals, who specialize in not getting killed.
Anyway, I still think you are looking at the proposed changes in a vacuum. Lets say there is more cast time added, to for example, Fungal Growth. Yes, that would make Fungal Growth in its current form, with its current numbers, into a very high risk spell with rewards that don't equal the risk. If the effects of the spell were buffed, then it would balance that out. This game will be undergoing balance changes for at least the next 2 years, so the fact that things are going to be rebalanced and fixed is a given. If the game is going to be made more exciting, and into a game that will truly surpass BW, the things talked about in the OP should be addressed early in the life of the game, so Blizzard has more time to get everything balanced.
Tweaking numbers on the spell, like range/duration/damage/radius would not decrease its risk but only increase its reward. A build without casters (that are already heavily favored anyway) would have yet more stability. You would have to tweak numbers on ALL units to "slow down" the pace.
Things happen quicker in SC2 because you see a lot more units engaging at THE SAME time. AOE damage is "smarter" too, when units AI control the "overkill" aspects of tanks.
I am not looking at the changes in a vaccuum. That is in fact kind of what the article proposes. Changes disregarding balance issues. It's like if Blizzard patches and changes how AOE damage on tanks and similar units work.
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.
The game is not boring. It is not boring to watch and it is not boring to play. It already takes a heavy toll on your mind. You can CLEARLY see when you screwed up someone in some way or another. You can see sloppy play, you can clearly see mistakes in macro, in unit composition and a lot of mid battle micro.
What you said in the end of your post nailed it: you need more time to adjust to the game. This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it. The suggestions made are an artificial mean of introducing some "cluch" and states that "balance is not the issue here".
But you CANT change some core game mechanics and expect to not throw balance out of the window. Beta is over, it took many months of tweaking to achieve some form of balance. We will get dozens of patches until the game is fixed but right now it is AT LEAST playable and I dont think anyone disagrees on that.
Truth is people just want to play and keep playing BW. I have seen some excelent SC2 games already, some of wich are way better than most BW I've seen. I find funny that people want to add layers on something they still don't understand.
This is the last time I'm going to reply to this thread because at this point I feel like we're just repeating ourselves, and other people can do that. I never said it was boring. The perspectives we're taking are clearly different. You're looking from a gamer's perspective, and I can respect that. SC2 is by no means a boring game, neither in watching or playing - for now. It does take a heavy toll on your mind and replay analysis will show plenty of mistakes. But I'm going to assume that neither you or I, or 99.9% of the people here on this site are of the caliber that goes on in the Korean progaming scene. And that's where my focus is at. You're right, I do make plenty of mistakes - more than I'd like to admit. And yes we do need more time to adjust to the game.
But the thing is, advocates with BW background want to reach that awesome balance that includes those "wow" moments ASAP because then we can all play the same game and get better, as opposed to waiting 5-10 years for the patches to finally come through. Think back to the beta and I'm sure you had moments when you just thought "what the heck, this part of the game is broken, it needs to be patched" or something of the sort. What we want is that part to be fixed without losing the mass long term appeal that this game could have.
You're 100% correct in saying that "This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it." But SC2 is also 100% an evolution from the original, hence the 2. These suggestions aren't an artificial mean of introducing "clutch", it's very real because it isn't just for show. Whether someone is watching the game or not, doesn't change the fact that getting that perfect storm or emp or whatever off can change the game flow. The reason we say that balance is not an issue is because these are merely ideas that when introduced will need to be balanced. It isn't a copy/paste insert that Plexa has posted up here. It's some awesome theorycrafting.
We're not expecting these ideas to be added, without changing the balance in some way; we're hoping that it will allow for less of the game balancing itself, and more of the players balancing each other.
I don't think people just want to play and keep playing BW. If we did, we'd simply go back to playing BW - the game hasn't left. What we want is that same epic game feeling in a game that's already winning in graphics and smoothness. We're trying to add layers to something that we feel like won't have the competitive nature of BW. Even at the upper levels of laddering, I feel that there's much less that you can do to turn a game around.
vAltyR puts it quite well:
On July 25 2010 03:51 vAltyR wrote:
On July 24 2010 05:10 Fincheronious wrote: You should worry less about fixing a bad situation that you are already in and start thinking about how to avoid a bad situation altogether, and you will start to realize more dynamics in competitive play.
Avoiding a bad situation is all well and good, but it doesn't make for exciting matches for the spectators. What you suggest seems to me to be more like a game of chess; you have to pay attention to your opponent's pieces as well as your own in order to succeed.
However, chess is quite boring to watch because of the subtleties of the moves. Unless your understanding of chess is on par with the people playing it, you won't have a lot of fun watching it simply because you won't understand what's going on. Putting more emphasis on preparation for your opponent also creates a system where once you are behind, it's very hard to win unless your opponent makes a mistake. I'm not saying preparation isn't or shouldn't be important, but it should be on par with spur-of-the-moment tactics.
Starcraft should be a game of hard counters on paper, soft counters in practice. This lets players emphasize on preparation by using good counters to what their opponent builds, but the opponent can still fight back, instead of getting completely obliterated.
We want this depth because it gives us hope. Hope in the eternal evolution of this game and hope in individual games. And when you look at humanity, that's a lot of what we're looking for... some sort of hope to keep us going.
That is the point. You want to add depth to something you haven't reached the bottom of yet. All the main criticism I have read here and from interviews with "top players" focus on the aspect that this game isn't BW. It's just not as clunky. As is EMPs and Storms CAN change battles.
People compare the damage that one storm does but tend to forget that they are not isolated. You have an army to support that. Its like saying one tank can't one shot a Hydra.
And I do know what you mean by Korean Pro Scene and players of that caliber. Problem is that so far what they have shown us is that they too are very very very far from completely mastering the game.
Do you really think that SC2 requires any where near the amount of micro, or excitement in games? Balance is one question, but people who even like SC2 have said the game is mainly about unit composition, and due to the intelligent AI, micro doesn't make nearly as much of a difference as it does in BW. SC2 does have skills and abilities that can change battles. But, skills like EMP or Fungal Growth, when pulled off, doesn't make you go "OH MY GOD HE LANDED IT, THIS BATTLE HIS OVER". Skills like that are almost guaranteed to happen since you can't really dodge them (you can prepare to mitigate them before hand by spreading, but thats pretty much it). Battles are decided before they even happen due to positioning and composition.
Brood War is a quality game, so why not try and implement parts of BW that work? Even if people haven't reached the depths of SC2 skill, whats the harm in adding tricks and stuff that would make things more exciting? Don't you want SC2 to be as good as it possibly can be?
Unit AI have different priorities in a battle. You probably noticed that as it is quite obvious. If you don't focus fire and let your whatever do their thing they can end up killing all medivacs and getting raped by the remaining ground army.
If you DO manage to micro around and focus on a more dangerous target you have to worry about the position of your army and actually getting in range do fire. How many times you see a low ranged immortal dance around like idiots because there is a wall of stalkers? TOP TIER gamers doing that, mind you.
How often you see "one control group syndrome"? How many times have you seen someone blink stalkers one by one to micro them out of harm? How many times have you seen a proper use and harass using reapers that are fast as hell?
Players are learning to deal with a lot of things and I like to watch SC2 much more than BW games. Anyone can learn unit compositions and timings but its another story to pull off with the units you have.
Why not try to implement parts of BW that work? Because its SC2, not BW. The harm of adding tricks and stuff is rebalancing everything to accomodate these changes. Sometimes veterans seem scared that because the game is a little friendlier to the "noob" that it doesn't have depth.
Anyone can learn unit composition and timing. And unfortunately, SC2 is much more centered around things like that than BW. It isn't even up for debate, IMO.
You talk about an immortal dancing around like idiots in SC2 because Stalkers are in front. So, uhhhh, lets say that all those stalkers were retarded too (lets say they are infinitely more retarded), and your zealots were also too stupid to run around the Stalkers when attacking? AI control issues were worse on so many levels in BW, and the fact that they aren't as bad in SC2 simply reduces the amount of micro you actually need to do in battles. Its just a fact. Focus firing, positioning, composition, all that stuff exists in both games. Except in one game, it requires alot more effort due to interface and unit AI. Therefore, since that aspect is made easier, the game obviously would focus more on the elements of composition and positioning.
God forbid things be done extremely early in a game's life to make it more exciting, because you might have to balance it! The game is going be going through balance changes for at LEAST the next 2 years, so it doesn't even matter. And its not like it would even take a whole lot of number changing to even balance the suggestions in the OP. "The game is SC2, not BW"? What sort of argument is that? I'm sick and tired of seeing people say that. Its a simple question you have to ask yourself: Do you want SC2 to be as good as it possibly can be? If you do, then there is no harm at all in adopting aspects of BW that contribute to its greatness.
I don't think you understood what I said in the immortals example. What I meant is that in that particular case the AI, advanced as it is, doesn't matter or influence because you STILL need to properly micro the units in their correct position.
Yes I want SC2 to be as good as it can be, but I do not think adpoting aspects of BW would make it so. It worked in that game but SC2 isn't BW. That argument again. Why is that?
SC2 is clearly faster. Things seem to be a lot more fragile. The "one big huge battle" in a game are played with a LOT more units firing at the same time. SC2 units look a lot smaller on screen (resolution and FOV are increased) so you don't micro in "waves" but in balls. Those proposed changes would slow down caster play making it so that focusing on spells would make it so high risk that you would not bother with that at all.
Personally, things don't seem more fragile to me. In BW, you had spider mines and Siege tanks killing 100 supply worth of Dragoons in a matter of seconds. You had control groups of hydras exploding from a single storm, or Reaver scarab. People used lings more. Bio TvZ was a battle of two glass armies dueling with each other. Now you have stuff like Roaches, Mauraders, and Immortals, who specialize in not getting killed.
Anyway, I still think you are looking at the proposed changes in a vacuum. Lets say there is more cast time added, to for example, Fungal Growth. Yes, that would make Fungal Growth in its current form, with its current numbers, into a very high risk spell with rewards that don't equal the risk. If the effects of the spell were buffed, then it would balance that out. This game will be undergoing balance changes for at least the next 2 years, so the fact that things are going to be rebalanced and fixed is a given. If the game is going to be made more exciting, and into a game that will truly surpass BW, the things talked about in the OP should be addressed early in the life of the game, so Blizzard has more time to get everything balanced.
Tweaking numbers on the spell, like range/duration/damage/radius would not decrease its risk but only increase its reward. A build without casters (that are already heavily favored anyway) would have yet more stability. You would have to tweak numbers on ALL units to "slow down" the pace.
Things happen quicker in SC2 because you see a lot more units engaging at THE SAME time. AOE damage is "smarter" too, when units AI control the "overkill" aspects of tanks.
I am not looking at the changes in a vaccuum. That is in fact kind of what the article proposes. Changes disregarding balance issues. It's like if Blizzard patches and changes how AOE damage on tanks and similar units work.
Okay I said I wouldn't post anymore but this last post just annoys the heck out of me. Either you're trolling really hard or you're replying before you're reading (most likely the latter). The majority of your responses dodge the issue, and the rest is just a response to 1 idea. You're not reading what we or the OP are saying.
First off, tweaking numbers could definitely increase risk (imagine making a cast range shorter). You would have to run in close to use it, subjecting that caster to more danger. That's just one example, so don't come back saying OH BUT YOU DIDN'T IMAGINE THIS OR THIS OR THIS. And no you don't have to tweak numbers on all units to slow down the pace. We're going for a changed game interaction, not a slower choppier game.
Yeah, things are happening quicker in sc2 because a lot more units are engaging at the same time. That's because now you can just 1a units into a battle instead of 1a2a3a etc. etc. I see games where not many hotkeys are being used; mostly about 4-6 out of the 10. In BW, we couldn't have enough hotkeys. Here we have more than enough but the fact that most hotkeys are similar (E for probe, pylon, weapons upgrade, sentry, etc.) allows us to not want to spread our hands out as much for optimal playing speed. Granted that's a personal opinion but I feel like other people share that idea in that nobody I've seen uses all 10 hotkeys. You're right on the ranged AI being smarter too, especially with overkill. But that's unrelated as far as I can tell.
And while you might not be looking at changes in a vacuum (I would argue that you were at the start at least), you're STILL not looking at them the way Plexa meant them to be read. He never proposed them to be looked at in a vacuum, specifically saying that this was a theorycrafting of DESIGN not BALANCE. That means that he's not even touching the number crunching that's a debate of vacuum or no vacuum. Which is why changes disregarding balance issues is not really an issue here.
Not sure if it's been mentioned, but burrow ability on zerg units could be a way to dodge psi-storm and maybe other ae abilities talked about, adding to that wow factor.
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.
The game is not boring. It is not boring to watch and it is not boring to play. It already takes a heavy toll on your mind. You can CLEARLY see when you screwed up someone in some way or another. You can see sloppy play, you can clearly see mistakes in macro, in unit composition and a lot of mid battle micro.
What you said in the end of your post nailed it: you need more time to adjust to the game. This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it. The suggestions made are an artificial mean of introducing some "cluch" and states that "balance is not the issue here".
But you CANT change some core game mechanics and expect to not throw balance out of the window. Beta is over, it took many months of tweaking to achieve some form of balance. We will get dozens of patches until the game is fixed but right now it is AT LEAST playable and I dont think anyone disagrees on that.
Truth is people just want to play and keep playing BW. I have seen some excelent SC2 games already, some of wich are way better than most BW I've seen. I find funny that people want to add layers on something they still don't understand.
This is the last time I'm going to reply to this thread because at this point I feel like we're just repeating ourselves, and other people can do that. I never said it was boring. The perspectives we're taking are clearly different. You're looking from a gamer's perspective, and I can respect that. SC2 is by no means a boring game, neither in watching or playing - for now. It does take a heavy toll on your mind and replay analysis will show plenty of mistakes. But I'm going to assume that neither you or I, or 99.9% of the people here on this site are of the caliber that goes on in the Korean progaming scene. And that's where my focus is at. You're right, I do make plenty of mistakes - more than I'd like to admit. And yes we do need more time to adjust to the game.
But the thing is, advocates with BW background want to reach that awesome balance that includes those "wow" moments ASAP because then we can all play the same game and get better, as opposed to waiting 5-10 years for the patches to finally come through. Think back to the beta and I'm sure you had moments when you just thought "what the heck, this part of the game is broken, it needs to be patched" or something of the sort. What we want is that part to be fixed without losing the mass long term appeal that this game could have.
You're 100% correct in saying that "This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it." But SC2 is also 100% an evolution from the original, hence the 2. These suggestions aren't an artificial mean of introducing "clutch", it's very real because it isn't just for show. Whether someone is watching the game or not, doesn't change the fact that getting that perfect storm or emp or whatever off can change the game flow. The reason we say that balance is not an issue is because these are merely ideas that when introduced will need to be balanced. It isn't a copy/paste insert that Plexa has posted up here. It's some awesome theorycrafting.
We're not expecting these ideas to be added, without changing the balance in some way; we're hoping that it will allow for less of the game balancing itself, and more of the players balancing each other.
I don't think people just want to play and keep playing BW. If we did, we'd simply go back to playing BW - the game hasn't left. What we want is that same epic game feeling in a game that's already winning in graphics and smoothness. We're trying to add layers to something that we feel like won't have the competitive nature of BW. Even at the upper levels of laddering, I feel that there's much less that you can do to turn a game around.
vAltyR puts it quite well:
On July 25 2010 03:51 vAltyR wrote:
On July 24 2010 05:10 Fincheronious wrote: You should worry less about fixing a bad situation that you are already in and start thinking about how to avoid a bad situation altogether, and you will start to realize more dynamics in competitive play.
Avoiding a bad situation is all well and good, but it doesn't make for exciting matches for the spectators. What you suggest seems to me to be more like a game of chess; you have to pay attention to your opponent's pieces as well as your own in order to succeed.
However, chess is quite boring to watch because of the subtleties of the moves. Unless your understanding of chess is on par with the people playing it, you won't have a lot of fun watching it simply because you won't understand what's going on. Putting more emphasis on preparation for your opponent also creates a system where once you are behind, it's very hard to win unless your opponent makes a mistake. I'm not saying preparation isn't or shouldn't be important, but it should be on par with spur-of-the-moment tactics.
Starcraft should be a game of hard counters on paper, soft counters in practice. This lets players emphasize on preparation by using good counters to what their opponent builds, but the opponent can still fight back, instead of getting completely obliterated.
We want this depth because it gives us hope. Hope in the eternal evolution of this game and hope in individual games. And when you look at humanity, that's a lot of what we're looking for... some sort of hope to keep us going.
That is the point. You want to add depth to something you haven't reached the bottom of yet. All the main criticism I have read here and from interviews with "top players" focus on the aspect that this game isn't BW. It's just not as clunky. As is EMPs and Storms CAN change battles.
People compare the damage that one storm does but tend to forget that they are not isolated. You have an army to support that. Its like saying one tank can't one shot a Hydra.
And I do know what you mean by Korean Pro Scene and players of that caliber. Problem is that so far what they have shown us is that they too are very very very far from completely mastering the game.
Do you really think that SC2 requires any where near the amount of micro, or excitement in games? Balance is one question, but people who even like SC2 have said the game is mainly about unit composition, and due to the intelligent AI, micro doesn't make nearly as much of a difference as it does in BW. SC2 does have skills and abilities that can change battles. But, skills like EMP or Fungal Growth, when pulled off, doesn't make you go "OH MY GOD HE LANDED IT, THIS BATTLE HIS OVER". Skills like that are almost guaranteed to happen since you can't really dodge them (you can prepare to mitigate them before hand by spreading, but thats pretty much it). Battles are decided before they even happen due to positioning and composition.
Brood War is a quality game, so why not try and implement parts of BW that work? Even if people haven't reached the depths of SC2 skill, whats the harm in adding tricks and stuff that would make things more exciting? Don't you want SC2 to be as good as it possibly can be?
Unit AI have different priorities in a battle. You probably noticed that as it is quite obvious. If you don't focus fire and let your whatever do their thing they can end up killing all medivacs and getting raped by the remaining ground army.
If you DO manage to micro around and focus on a more dangerous target you have to worry about the position of your army and actually getting in range do fire. How many times you see a low ranged immortal dance around like idiots because there is a wall of stalkers? TOP TIER gamers doing that, mind you.
How often you see "one control group syndrome"? How many times have you seen someone blink stalkers one by one to micro them out of harm? How many times have you seen a proper use and harass using reapers that are fast as hell?
Players are learning to deal with a lot of things and I like to watch SC2 much more than BW games. Anyone can learn unit compositions and timings but its another story to pull off with the units you have.
Why not try to implement parts of BW that work? Because its SC2, not BW. The harm of adding tricks and stuff is rebalancing everything to accomodate these changes. Sometimes veterans seem scared that because the game is a little friendlier to the "noob" that it doesn't have depth.
Anyone can learn unit composition and timing. And unfortunately, SC2 is much more centered around things like that than BW. It isn't even up for debate, IMO.
You talk about an immortal dancing around like idiots in SC2 because Stalkers are in front. So, uhhhh, lets say that all those stalkers were retarded too (lets say they are infinitely more retarded), and your zealots were also too stupid to run around the Stalkers when attacking? AI control issues were worse on so many levels in BW, and the fact that they aren't as bad in SC2 simply reduces the amount of micro you actually need to do in battles. Its just a fact. Focus firing, positioning, composition, all that stuff exists in both games. Except in one game, it requires alot more effort due to interface and unit AI. Therefore, since that aspect is made easier, the game obviously would focus more on the elements of composition and positioning.
God forbid things be done extremely early in a game's life to make it more exciting, because you might have to balance it! The game is going be going through balance changes for at LEAST the next 2 years, so it doesn't even matter. And its not like it would even take a whole lot of number changing to even balance the suggestions in the OP. "The game is SC2, not BW"? What sort of argument is that? I'm sick and tired of seeing people say that. Its a simple question you have to ask yourself: Do you want SC2 to be as good as it possibly can be? If you do, then there is no harm at all in adopting aspects of BW that contribute to its greatness.
I don't think you understood what I said in the immortals example. What I meant is that in that particular case the AI, advanced as it is, doesn't matter or influence because you STILL need to properly micro the units in their correct position.
Yes I want SC2 to be as good as it can be, but I do not think adpoting aspects of BW would make it so. It worked in that game but SC2 isn't BW. That argument again. Why is that?
SC2 is clearly faster. Things seem to be a lot more fragile. The "one big huge battle" in a game are played with a LOT more units firing at the same time. SC2 units look a lot smaller on screen (resolution and FOV are increased) so you don't micro in "waves" but in balls. Those proposed changes would slow down caster play making it so that focusing on spells would make it so high risk that you would not bother with that at all.
Personally, things don't seem more fragile to me. In BW, you had spider mines and Siege tanks killing 100 supply worth of Dragoons in a matter of seconds. You had control groups of hydras exploding from a single storm, or Reaver scarab. People used lings more. Bio TvZ was a battle of two glass armies dueling with each other. Now you have stuff like Roaches, Mauraders, and Immortals, who specialize in not getting killed.
Anyway, I still think you are looking at the proposed changes in a vacuum. Lets say there is more cast time added, to for example, Fungal Growth. Yes, that would make Fungal Growth in its current form, with its current numbers, into a very high risk spell with rewards that don't equal the risk. If the effects of the spell were buffed, then it would balance that out. This game will be undergoing balance changes for at least the next 2 years, so the fact that things are going to be rebalanced and fixed is a given. If the game is going to be made more exciting, and into a game that will truly surpass BW, the things talked about in the OP should be addressed early in the life of the game, so Blizzard has more time to get everything balanced.
Tweaking numbers on the spell, like range/duration/damage/radius would not decrease its risk but only increase its reward. A build without casters (that are already heavily favored anyway) would have yet more stability. You would have to tweak numbers on ALL units to "slow down" the pace.
Things happen quicker in SC2 because you see a lot more units engaging at THE SAME time. AOE damage is "smarter" too, when units AI control the "overkill" aspects of tanks.
I am not looking at the changes in a vaccuum. That is in fact kind of what the article proposes. Changes disregarding balance issues. It's like if Blizzard patches and changes how AOE damage on tanks and similar units work.
Who the hell is arguing for the game to be slowed down? How is that even relevant to anything here?
And yes, you are looking at it in a vacuum. Op says "make these changes to make the game more exciting". And then people like you come in and say "wahh imbalance, protoss bias, bufffin Protoss!!!" Even though it has been stated numerous times that the article isn't about balance. IF the article is just talking about design (which it is), there is no reason to bring balance into the equation. Are you incapable of discussing things like design without bringing in irrelevant topics?
I think SC2 isn't looking like what SC1 is because of how small the units are. They don't spread out, they clump together. So when you attack, it's this massive blob instead of constant reinforcement, pushing and pulling. When you push and pull in SC2, it's so much more obvious because the entire blob moves.
There are a lot of designs that could be possible.
EMPs stop energy, so why not break hallucinations, break forcefields, break guardian shields, break storms? Then the ghost is such a vital unit that it can't just be simply massed. It'll come out right when there are enough sentries to be a threat. That was what the science vessel was, coming out right when lurkers arrived. and then the zerg has to have teched to spire and get out scourge. There's a lot of things to add to the wow factor. We can't be sure of anything yet, and if Blizzard does for this game what was done to SC1, we should have nothing to worry about.
The game is not boring. It is not boring to watch and it is not boring to play. It already takes a heavy toll on your mind. You can CLEARLY see when you screwed up someone in some way or another. You can see sloppy play, you can clearly see mistakes in macro, in unit composition and a lot of mid battle micro.
What you said in the end of your post nailed it: you need more time to adjust to the game. This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it. The suggestions made are an artificial mean of introducing some "cluch" and states that "balance is not the issue here".
But you CANT change some core game mechanics and expect to not throw balance out of the window. Beta is over, it took many months of tweaking to achieve some form of balance. We will get dozens of patches until the game is fixed but right now it is AT LEAST playable and I dont think anyone disagrees on that.
Truth is people just want to play and keep playing BW. I have seen some excelent SC2 games already, some of wich are way better than most BW I've seen. I find funny that people want to add layers on something they still don't understand.
This is the last time I'm going to reply to this thread because at this point I feel like we're just repeating ourselves, and other people can do that. I never said it was boring. The perspectives we're taking are clearly different. You're looking from a gamer's perspective, and I can respect that. SC2 is by no means a boring game, neither in watching or playing - for now. It does take a heavy toll on your mind and replay analysis will show plenty of mistakes. But I'm going to assume that neither you or I, or 99.9% of the people here on this site are of the caliber that goes on in the Korean progaming scene. And that's where my focus is at. You're right, I do make plenty of mistakes - more than I'd like to admit. And yes we do need more time to adjust to the game.
But the thing is, advocates with BW background want to reach that awesome balance that includes those "wow" moments ASAP because then we can all play the same game and get better, as opposed to waiting 5-10 years for the patches to finally come through. Think back to the beta and I'm sure you had moments when you just thought "what the heck, this part of the game is broken, it needs to be patched" or something of the sort. What we want is that part to be fixed without losing the mass long term appeal that this game could have.
You're 100% correct in saying that "This isn't BW, it will never be and you can't try to force it." But SC2 is also 100% an evolution from the original, hence the 2. These suggestions aren't an artificial mean of introducing "clutch", it's very real because it isn't just for show. Whether someone is watching the game or not, doesn't change the fact that getting that perfect storm or emp or whatever off can change the game flow. The reason we say that balance is not an issue is because these are merely ideas that when introduced will need to be balanced. It isn't a copy/paste insert that Plexa has posted up here. It's some awesome theorycrafting.
We're not expecting these ideas to be added, without changing the balance in some way; we're hoping that it will allow for less of the game balancing itself, and more of the players balancing each other.
I don't think people just want to play and keep playing BW. If we did, we'd simply go back to playing BW - the game hasn't left. What we want is that same epic game feeling in a game that's already winning in graphics and smoothness. We're trying to add layers to something that we feel like won't have the competitive nature of BW. Even at the upper levels of laddering, I feel that there's much less that you can do to turn a game around.
vAltyR puts it quite well:
On July 25 2010 03:51 vAltyR wrote: [quote] Avoiding a bad situation is all well and good, but it doesn't make for exciting matches for the spectators. What you suggest seems to me to be more like a game of chess; you have to pay attention to your opponent's pieces as well as your own in order to succeed.
However, chess is quite boring to watch because of the subtleties of the moves. Unless your understanding of chess is on par with the people playing it, you won't have a lot of fun watching it simply because you won't understand what's going on. Putting more emphasis on preparation for your opponent also creates a system where once you are behind, it's very hard to win unless your opponent makes a mistake. I'm not saying preparation isn't or shouldn't be important, but it should be on par with spur-of-the-moment tactics.
Starcraft should be a game of hard counters on paper, soft counters in practice. This lets players emphasize on preparation by using good counters to what their opponent builds, but the opponent can still fight back, instead of getting completely obliterated.
We want this depth because it gives us hope. Hope in the eternal evolution of this game and hope in individual games. And when you look at humanity, that's a lot of what we're looking for... some sort of hope to keep us going.
That is the point. You want to add depth to something you haven't reached the bottom of yet. All the main criticism I have read here and from interviews with "top players" focus on the aspect that this game isn't BW. It's just not as clunky. As is EMPs and Storms CAN change battles.
People compare the damage that one storm does but tend to forget that they are not isolated. You have an army to support that. Its like saying one tank can't one shot a Hydra.
And I do know what you mean by Korean Pro Scene and players of that caliber. Problem is that so far what they have shown us is that they too are very very very far from completely mastering the game.
Do you really think that SC2 requires any where near the amount of micro, or excitement in games? Balance is one question, but people who even like SC2 have said the game is mainly about unit composition, and due to the intelligent AI, micro doesn't make nearly as much of a difference as it does in BW. SC2 does have skills and abilities that can change battles. But, skills like EMP or Fungal Growth, when pulled off, doesn't make you go "OH MY GOD HE LANDED IT, THIS BATTLE HIS OVER". Skills like that are almost guaranteed to happen since you can't really dodge them (you can prepare to mitigate them before hand by spreading, but thats pretty much it). Battles are decided before they even happen due to positioning and composition.
Brood War is a quality game, so why not try and implement parts of BW that work? Even if people haven't reached the depths of SC2 skill, whats the harm in adding tricks and stuff that would make things more exciting? Don't you want SC2 to be as good as it possibly can be?
Unit AI have different priorities in a battle. You probably noticed that as it is quite obvious. If you don't focus fire and let your whatever do their thing they can end up killing all medivacs and getting raped by the remaining ground army.
If you DO manage to micro around and focus on a more dangerous target you have to worry about the position of your army and actually getting in range do fire. How many times you see a low ranged immortal dance around like idiots because there is a wall of stalkers? TOP TIER gamers doing that, mind you.
How often you see "one control group syndrome"? How many times have you seen someone blink stalkers one by one to micro them out of harm? How many times have you seen a proper use and harass using reapers that are fast as hell?
Players are learning to deal with a lot of things and I like to watch SC2 much more than BW games. Anyone can learn unit compositions and timings but its another story to pull off with the units you have.
Why not try to implement parts of BW that work? Because its SC2, not BW. The harm of adding tricks and stuff is rebalancing everything to accomodate these changes. Sometimes veterans seem scared that because the game is a little friendlier to the "noob" that it doesn't have depth.
Anyone can learn unit composition and timing. And unfortunately, SC2 is much more centered around things like that than BW. It isn't even up for debate, IMO.
You talk about an immortal dancing around like idiots in SC2 because Stalkers are in front. So, uhhhh, lets say that all those stalkers were retarded too (lets say they are infinitely more retarded), and your zealots were also too stupid to run around the Stalkers when attacking? AI control issues were worse on so many levels in BW, and the fact that they aren't as bad in SC2 simply reduces the amount of micro you actually need to do in battles. Its just a fact. Focus firing, positioning, composition, all that stuff exists in both games. Except in one game, it requires alot more effort due to interface and unit AI. Therefore, since that aspect is made easier, the game obviously would focus more on the elements of composition and positioning.
God forbid things be done extremely early in a game's life to make it more exciting, because you might have to balance it! The game is going be going through balance changes for at LEAST the next 2 years, so it doesn't even matter. And its not like it would even take a whole lot of number changing to even balance the suggestions in the OP. "The game is SC2, not BW"? What sort of argument is that? I'm sick and tired of seeing people say that. Its a simple question you have to ask yourself: Do you want SC2 to be as good as it possibly can be? If you do, then there is no harm at all in adopting aspects of BW that contribute to its greatness.
I don't think you understood what I said in the immortals example. What I meant is that in that particular case the AI, advanced as it is, doesn't matter or influence because you STILL need to properly micro the units in their correct position.
Yes I want SC2 to be as good as it can be, but I do not think adpoting aspects of BW would make it so. It worked in that game but SC2 isn't BW. That argument again. Why is that?
SC2 is clearly faster. Things seem to be a lot more fragile. The "one big huge battle" in a game are played with a LOT more units firing at the same time. SC2 units look a lot smaller on screen (resolution and FOV are increased) so you don't micro in "waves" but in balls. Those proposed changes would slow down caster play making it so that focusing on spells would make it so high risk that you would not bother with that at all.
Personally, things don't seem more fragile to me. In BW, you had spider mines and Siege tanks killing 100 supply worth of Dragoons in a matter of seconds. You had control groups of hydras exploding from a single storm, or Reaver scarab. People used lings more. Bio TvZ was a battle of two glass armies dueling with each other. Now you have stuff like Roaches, Mauraders, and Immortals, who specialize in not getting killed.
Anyway, I still think you are looking at the proposed changes in a vacuum. Lets say there is more cast time added, to for example, Fungal Growth. Yes, that would make Fungal Growth in its current form, with its current numbers, into a very high risk spell with rewards that don't equal the risk. If the effects of the spell were buffed, then it would balance that out. This game will be undergoing balance changes for at least the next 2 years, so the fact that things are going to be rebalanced and fixed is a given. If the game is going to be made more exciting, and into a game that will truly surpass BW, the things talked about in the OP should be addressed early in the life of the game, so Blizzard has more time to get everything balanced.
Tweaking numbers on the spell, like range/duration/damage/radius would not decrease its risk but only increase its reward. A build without casters (that are already heavily favored anyway) would have yet more stability. You would have to tweak numbers on ALL units to "slow down" the pace.
Things happen quicker in SC2 because you see a lot more units engaging at THE SAME time. AOE damage is "smarter" too, when units AI control the "overkill" aspects of tanks.
I am not looking at the changes in a vaccuum. That is in fact kind of what the article proposes. Changes disregarding balance issues. It's like if Blizzard patches and changes how AOE damage on tanks and similar units work.
Who the hell is arguing for the game to be slowed down? How is that even relevant to anything here?
And yes, you are looking at it in a vacuum. Op says "make these changes to make the game more exciting". And then people like you come in and say "wahh imbalance, protoss bias, bufffin Protoss!!!" Even though it has been stated numerous times that the article isn't about balance. IF the article is just talking about design (which it is), there is no reason to bring balance into the equation. Are you incapable of discussing things like design without bringing in irrelevant topics?
I think you do agree that the proposed changes would make caster less dynamic for the caster, right? I mean, even with numbers tweaking and they still being effective, the cast time alone would make it so that you have to be a lot more careful placing them. What has to be FASTER is the reaction time of the player who is about to get hit, hence the WOW HE DODGED IT. Is that the spirit that the article is looking for? I hope we can agree on that.
That would be in OPs point of view more exciting. I do not agree with that at all. The article is clearly protoss biased, you can't possibly disagree with that. But as you said, if balance isn't an issue in these suggestions you can take OPs opinion as toss-sided, simple as that. Looking things in a vacuum is exactly what the article proposes: design for design sake. Isolating something he feels could make the game better, improve on it and THEN mold the game around it. Again, I strongly disagree with the design changes. I think they are just bad from a pure design standpoint.
I think there are a lot of things unexplored and the game right now just needs time. BUT if you DO agree with the article in the sense that game needs RIGHT NOW new layers of depth there are other ways to do that. Better ways.
Great point with the OP. I would like to see more micro capacity in the manner suggested. At this point, I'm very happy with the game as it is, and I look forward to it's continued development over the next two expansions.
An awesome read, particularly with regard to guardian shields blocking EMP and banelings doing less damage upon death. I think OP makes a good point about balance; I remember when beta first came out outraged Protoss raged that the frontline Protoss air unit was the Phoenix, a useless paper airplane that could lift one unit at the cost of being locked down.
Enter Nony, and suddenly people realized a critical mass of 4-5 Phoenixes was actually... pretty awesome.
Ultralisks? A joke! Nerfed beyond recognition, players complained. Yet with each patch it got a little more buffed, and now it's not uncommon to see idra or some other high-flying zerg player send streams of Ultralisks (okay, maybe 5 at a time) into tank fire to shatter late-game Terran turtle shells.
Given time, I think we'll discover all manner of incredible strategies that Blizzard has embedded into the potential of these units-- and some they didn't mean to, a la fazing. It would be nice if they met us halfway on balance issues like EMP dodge-ability and such, but these things will come with time. Happy gaming tonight!
I agree with the point that stim and force field do not need a "wow" factor, but I disagree with your characterization of why this is so: stim and point defence drone are certainly big impacts on most battles! Perhaps a more correct characterization is that these abilities affect the other persons stuff less directly? (i.e., doesn't lock them down etc.) I dunno.
I agree with the principle expounded in the OP, but disagree with certain specifics. Adding a cast time to NP would render the spell unusable at lower levels of play. The infestor is already a huge, obvious, cumbersome, fragile unit that gets - at best - one chance to make the huge difference it HAS to make for the zerg player to have any chance of winning. Killing infestors is already an order of magnitude easier than using them; let's not make it two orders of magnitude.
Honestly, if someone doesn't agree with what was written, he either missed Plexa's points or didn't understand why Starcraft 1 was so good and long lasting (not to say Starcraft 2 has to be "like Starcraft 1", but the latter should inherit all the best essences of the former).
I've always thought that storm should do a little more damage to armored units and a little less damage to light units... making a player want to react to storm AND having that reaction be worthwhile.
Thank you for the clear and concise reasoning! Great post.
On July 27 2010 20:23 LeDuck wrote: Did I just screw up several times, or did they really take out fazing out of the game? Don't seem to work for me anymore
Some of the ideas (unavoidably) are not really of My taste but some things are spot on! Most importantly the general idea of this article is the most important part to improve in starcraft2 right now! I hope that blizzard Will take note. They must understand that this is not only the wish of the skillfull players but all the players! Everyone enjoys to have many possibilities to improve!
Ghost EMP - Emp targets only one unit at a time, costs less energy or a small cool down. (target the damage dealers to take them to half life)[but counters your guardian shield a bit unless they choose to use 1 to snipe sentry and another few to emp select units after the sentry is dead] Ghost Snipe - does very large damage, but costs a lot of energy (snipe enemy casters/detectors ect)
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/SilverskY/SCIIConceptBanner.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/Filling_The_Void/voidconcept.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/Filling_The_Void/void2.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/Filling_The_Void/void3.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/Filling_The_Void/fungal.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/Filling_The_Void/EMP2.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/Filling_The_Void/storm.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/Filling_The_Void/baneling.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/Filling_The_Void/forcefield.jpg)
But a great article nonetheless.
And fungal growth does 36dmg over 8 seconds. And it doesnt stack. Its not like zerg can fg your army and then use their other aoe spell. Other than that great job and i hope blizz will take notice.
Great read and very interesting ideas that I think blizzard should take a look at and hopefully recognize the potential of it! Let's hope that such changes appear soon after the launch!
