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On February 22 2010 09:22 dacthehork wrote:
mm It would be nice
If anyone has any replays of contains/pushes or any type of map control things that really impact the game, could you post them here?
have only seen some T pushes on that android like map with the rocks blocking the short path. but other then that i dont think ive seen anything that we would call a push in sc1.
but it makes sense, weaker tanks,maaaass tank counters,no mines to protect em from angry lolcharging zealots, no lurkers to counter,air/mobility heaviness etc all just make our loved tank a lonely emo guy and as a result T never pushes or contains anymore.
the other reason is that the whole game shifted ALOT more into mobility overall. what does a strong map push help you when the enemy is just flying,porting,tunneling into your base/at your weak spots.you contain a zerg with most of your army? he just tunneld into your base and you lost half your base to a mass of angry zerg & banelings.
i dont know how much the general low lvl of skill affects the whole situation but currently it seems like the standart game is mostly a waiting game till 1 final clash and thats it.
i rarely saw a real back&forth or epic battles for that matter. i mean sc1 fights zvt midgame were HUGE fights with flanking,positioning and sick micro decided it(or a harrass war). today all i see is mass hydras/roaches/broodlords doing a head on aclick battle and thats it. pvt constant pushing,push breaking,harrassing etc made a game exciting from start to finish. now i see banshee harrass and then a 10 banshee 30 marines+medivac aclick battle at one point and the winner of that takes the game.if game goes longer but with some cruisers and thors in.
battles overall seem dumbed down atm. and as said i dont know if it is too low skill or if positioning,mapcontrol,flanking etc really just dont matter enough to make a headon aclick the wrong move atleast sometimes.
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Ok, reading all this one thing comes in mind. (I do not have the beta i'm just sharing my thoughts!) This is a really fresh game so the passive play of some players or rases can be explained with the fact that there are still rushes and units that people aren't confident countering (marauders,roaches,void rays). I think that with the balancing out and with more playtime there will be much more room for active play with map control.
The new level traversing units such as colossi and reapers and map mechanics such as brush , Xel'Naga watch towers and not being to shoot up cliffs will in my opinion greatly increase the attention of for instance what path will you take when you decide to push or how will you defend and overall map control.
Again I'm just sharing an opinion.
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Did you guys realize that the new sc2 medic can fly and take some guys on his back too? The new medic is like this dog-dragon from this fantasy story, you know the big white one!
Well back to topic...imagine they would change the medivac model for this big white dog-dragon fantasy creature xD.....well
even though i cannot beta my own i guess banelings can replace lurkers to some extend and can be used to some extend to contain, as can do tanks.
I guess there is even 1 advantage for contains in sc2, at least for now, thath is that units clump up alot which makes them alot more vulnerable for aoe attacks. I would think it would take quite some micro to run vs a contain while trying to not letting your units clump together while the container can position his army with ease so they dont clump together as much.
Of course the nydus/warp/mass medivacs make it easier to engage a contain from more angles or just conterattack. Even though containing seems to have become toghter i can only hope that the terrans still find a way to contain like they used to, because thats the terran way of war.
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In sc almost all powerful units (tanks, mines, reaver, lurker...) have low mobility and/or hp which seems to favor caucious/defensive play, good positioning, makes offensive use more micro intensive and awesome to watch. Units like the colossus with high dmg/hp AND very good mobility are bad for the gameplay imo.
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100% agree with the people that are saying so far SC2 games resemble PvP/ZvZ. In general, the game right now is a 1 battle game -> mass up, build up command and conquer style (which is frightening if the game stays this shallow) and then push out and whoever wins the battle with shiny lights wins the game.
And like some people in the thread said, you have to be very careful with scouting, as just one overlord, phase prism, or a few reapers become a huge threat to your base. One overlord unscouted = nydus worm in your base, a phase prism somewhere unscouted is a power grid in ur base, and reapers are self explanatory.
this is all OK, as long as this is due to the game being in beta stages and is simply due to lack of inexperience with the game (of course). But if 3-6 months from now the game is in the same shape, then there is a huge problem.
Also agree with the people saying that the positional warfare may be "different" from SC1, to just think about it in a different way, as now you have to block more paths to ur base from all terrain crossing units, but we'll see...
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1. Its a Beta
2. Its not SC1
3. At the moment one fight decides the games because the Players are ineyperienced AND Scouting sucks!
If you would know what your opponent is doing you could counter it.
Lets give it some time.
mfg Tyrannon
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One more thing to keep in mind: two expansions are planned, right? Everyone is sad that Lurkers aren't in SC2, but in fact they weren't in the original SC either. I'm sure that the SC2 expansions will bring new units and new tactical elements (possibly even the return of the lurker), so I'm not going to worry about the overall balance too much right now.
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Why do you think that the lack of a lurker or anything for that matter in BETA means that they won't be in the retail? YOu can still change a whole lot of things in the beta to fit any holes in gameplay. WC3 retail had new units and buildings that weren't in the beta and even scrapped Beta units as well...
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On February 23 2010 03:15 flabortaster wrote:
Why do you think that the lack of a lurker or anything for that matter in BETA means that they won't be in the retail? YOu can still change a whole lot of things in the beta to fit any holes in gameplay. WC3 retail had new units and buildings that weren't in the beta and even scrapped Beta units as well...
under you assumptions and your critique (saying this thread is pointless because so much will change), you have to realize this is a discussion on the CURRENT balance / gameflow of SC2.
If what you are saying is to be taken, then no one should even discuss SC2 strategy since in 2 years everything will be different and all discussion is pointless.
The other inane argument "blizzard will fix it, dont complain". The Cause and effect cycle is MISSED by some people. Blizzard will fix things that are well founded, if they knew it was messed up then the problem would never be there in the first place, so discussing aspects of SC2 is like the whole point of BETA, SO that blizzard can change things.
Do you think blizzard already has retail units and lurkers ready to go into the game right now but are just holding them back? Why? they will respond to the way the game shapes up in doing these decisions and discussions like this HELP them.
Seriously, every FREAKING beta discussion is like this. If you discuss aspects of the game there will be at least 5 idiots who come in and say "This is only beta, everythign will change who cares". What they fail to realize is Blizzard changes BASED on feedback/experiments/designers analyzing how the game evolves. If you simply played a beta and said "why bother with any feedback it will all change" you're missing a huge important part of beta, which is gathering info + getting feedback.
It would be like saying, why complain to the landlord about that leaky faucet, someone will fix it. But the only way it gets fixed is if you complain.
so yes, your entire point is stupid.
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On another topic if you watch day9's recent TvP immortal build vs FE(mainly). You will notice another thing. Basically 2 armys A moving into one other, or turtling at base until you attack. All these harassing units won't matter so much, if there is no map control, people will just park their units in defensive positions and turtle till they decide to do a game winning push.
It's pretty clear that almost all the units are mobile, much more so than in SC1, so that really you have nothing to gain from making them push a farther distance. In SC1 you gain an advantage if zerg must push his lurkers from his base to yours, or his tanks. In SC2 there really aren't any units/mixes that create this opportunity, and the new backstab / mobility units makes it even harder.
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I don't have a beta key, so I'm not going to try to analyze anything in terms of specific units or mechanics. Instead, I'm going to make the following assumptions. If any of them is wrong, obviously, you should ignore the whole post.
1) So far, SC2 (beta) seems to have more focus on mobility than BW.
2) Highly mobile matchups in BW (ZvZ) tended to be difficult, intense, and relatively short.
1 seems self-evident to me from what (little) I've seen of the beta. 2 similarly seems self-evident. I've seen a lot more people making the PvP analogy than the ZvZ one, but PvP BW matches still tend to be shorter than, say, PvTs. There's obviously a bit of disagreement among the BW community as to how fun ZvZ is, to play and to watch, but for the purposes of this discussion, I'd say that's irrelevant. We're talking about strategy, not spectating (for now).
The main point where I'd differentiate SC2 from ZvZ or PvP (again, without having the beta, so I don't actually know, and it hasn't been out very long at all, so maybe nobody knows) is that as far as I can tell, more of the tech tree seems viable. There might be an equivalent to the Queen, but there isn't, say, a Scout that's useful maybe once every thousand games. Specifically, more of the tech tree is viable than in ZvZ - most of the units seem sufficiently mobile that they aren't hard countered by whatever the equivalent of massing muta/ling is. As far as I can tell, there are multiple ways to have an effective mobile army, irrespective of your race.
So, assuming none of the above is too outlandishly incorrect (again, for all I know I'm completely off base), what it looks like is that SC2, at least at the level of strategy we're currently at, and on the current maps (because can you imagine anyone thinking of something remotely like modern BW strategy in 1998 during the BW beta testing?), has the rough pacing of ZvZ, with strategic depth (in terms of build choice) more equivalent to the other BW matchups.
On the surface, that sounds okay - I'd personally prefer at least a few longer matches, but TvT is a little too slow for my tastes. However, we have to remember that the beta's been out for like a week. If strategy in SC2 progresses somewhat like it did in BW (though I'd predict it would do so much faster, since we know what to look for now), I'd expect to see the following, in roughly this order:
1) A build gets standardized. Someone will eventually come up with the equivalent of the Gundam rush, that completely rapes nearly everything that came before it with raw power and precise timing instead of cute tactics.
2) People adapt to it. One standardized build will lead to another to counter it, and then another to counter that. If SC2 is anything like BW, this will happen independently, and on different time scales, in all six matchups.
3) Maps change. The current Blizzard-made maps, which focus on whatever the Blizzard dev team's vision for SC2 is (more complex ZvZ, it seems) will slowly be replaced by professionally made 3rd-party maps. These will have different focuses and favor different strategies.
4) Micro improves. Advanced techniques will come up, not necessarily on the scale of modern muta micro, but at least to the extent of BW shuttle/reaver use. New builds will develop to take advantage of these.
My guess, my hope, my dream is that these changes will have the same effect that they did in BW - the game will get more complicated, more streamlined, more demanding, more intense, while losing the "oh I lost that battle okay gg" quality that so many low-level matches, ZvZs, and (it looks like) beta matches favor. This is, in my opinion, the only way SC2 will have anything like the lasting appeal of BW - it needs strategic stability. But hell, we don't even have a release candidate yet. No need to be worried already.
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On February 23 2010 02:52 dhardisty wrote:
One more thing to keep in mind: two expansions are planned, right? Everyone is sad that Lurkers aren't in SC2, but in fact they weren't in the original SC either. I'm sure that the SC2 expansions will bring new units and new tactical elements (possibly even the return of the lurker), so I'm not going to worry about the overall balance too much right now.
or a more advanced lurker. Maybe they decided everything else was done but the lurker needed to be changed so they took it out till they developed a new lurker.
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Burrowed banelings. Positional rape
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On February 20 2010 09:45 Chairman Ray wrote:
So far from what I have seen, you pretty much just move a control group of units where you see fit and positioning doesn't matter much. I think Blizzard intentionally removed a lot of the positional strategies because defensive games are not as entertaining to watch to the common viewer (ie terran turtles). They are rewarding the aggressor quite a bit, and that will definitely make an impact on the spectator scene.
*Buzzer*! Ehhh... This is wrong.
Sorry but this simply isn't true. Position is a VERY important part of SC 2 for every match up. Lets take a TvP for example on blistering sands. If you have map control this mena syou can safely take your third or 4th, get the Xel'Naga watch towers to see when and where they are coming from, and can give you a competitive advantage in a battle. Lets say your T and you spawn top right of blistering sands. Your goal (if you choose) is to control the bottom watch tower so you can take that expo and the gold expo above it. You can place a couple tanks on top of the cliff whee the tower is along with turrets n such, and keep your army in that general area. If you have your tanks spread and your army all in that general position you can keep those expos without any problems. Positioning is very important even without the chance to miss uphills. You can snipe obs or air units to keep vision off making it impossible for the enemy to even attack up cliffs at all which give syou a HUGE advantage. And positioning is always huge. It is better to be out on th emap with ur army nice and spread out then get caught off guard in your choke and trying to spread during a fight. Especially with devastating spells like Vortex, Storm, Hunter Seeker Missile, and fungal growth.
The map control isn't gone, people just haven't been able to take good advantage of it yet because we are all still learning the game.
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I had these thoughts (as it seems a lot of people did) a while back, too. There's just too many changes from sc1 to sc2 that make it seem like the positional strategic game has changed, but my assertion here is that the tactical positional game has been given a lot of new vitality; I'll give a few examples of things I've seen:
1) no-see-through shrubbery allows for ambushes, hidden reinforcements, or vision games
2) cliff-dancing units (like stalkers [with vision] or reapers) can force players into very positionally-relevant tactical situations at cliffs near their bases or wherever else cliff play is possible.
3) some abilities (like the sentry force-field) allow for close-quarter terrain manipulation for tactical advantage.
I don't know what the long-term strategic positional (both of singular games and the meta-game) implications of these changes will be, but I'd hazard that sc2 battles will have a greater range of tactical positional importance.
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EPT
