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On September 11 2012 17:21 dOraWa wrote:
You'd think people would be really up in arms about collossi with all the reasons orb mentioned.
Nope, let's just call the marauder an attack move unit (which it isn't) and equate the warhound to it....
I'm not saying I disagree; I play terran and I think the warhound is a terrible unit and should be redesigned from the ground up. Just the irony of a SC2 protoss player complaining about attack move units is sickening
I feel bad replying to this comment when there are so many more deserving comments that very intelligent posters made, but for some reason I feel drawn to do so anyways as there have been a couple people on other sites making similarly silly posts...
First off you should understand I'm a random player, not a protoss player. Protoss may be my best race, but I'm not a competitor. I'm no pro, I don't make posts for the purpose of buffing "my race" so that I can win more tournaments. I'm a caster. There is really no possible reason at all for me to want one race to be more powerful than the other. All I want is the best possible spectator experience, so that my audience will enjoy watching, the game will thrive, and I will enjoy casting and legitimately get excited enough to hype the players and their play up.
Secondly if you actually read my post instead of reading the title and assuming you know what I said, you'll notice I actually do reference how the colossus is an extreme failure in comparison to the reaver. I am not making an attack only on the Warhound, I am making an attack on all easy-mode low-risk/high-reward units and more importantly the design philosophy that leads to these types of units. I just use the Warhound as the focus and biggest example because it is probably the biggest offender that also does not even add anything to the game. While I hate units like the colossus (I have said so many times during WoL beta and release that it is my least favorite unit of all time and I even refused to build it for most of my Beta competitive career), at least they serve some purpose in the game, while the warhound really doesn't add anything other than a way to play mech exactly like the way people play bio.
Also, were I to make a thread today saying why the colossus should be removed, I can 100% guarantee it would be ignored by blizzard. It is much more likely in my opinion that if I make a thread with regards to a more current and immediate issue (as they are just now trying to make HotS balanced) that I will be able to change Blizzard's mind about their design philosophy in general.
It's an extreme long-shot, I am aware. At this point however I find myself becoming extremely motivated to do something, because I don't want to see my favorite game franchise become boring and lose the fun/excitement, which seems to be the direction Blizzard is taking it. I can no longer just sit idly by and let them ruin this game that used to be so unbelievably beautiful and inspiring.
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On September 10 2012 16:30 kaokentake wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2012 16:27 pmp10 wrote:
Are you seriously advocating removing or redesigning the warhound because you think it has 'wrong type' of micro?
If I understand your standards right then you would like to remove half of the units from SC2. each race can serve to have a couple units like this each race already does terran already has the marauder. already has the thor. basically... id much rather tanks just get buffed (even making their attacks go through hardened shields id be fine with, keeping the immortal as a counter to marauders/thors but not tanks and zealots/carriers counter tanks) to have position mech play be "mech" instead of a new ultra marauder being "mech" and im a master protoss, advocating an extreme tank buff here
I like your thinking here, my friend. Let me play TvP a bit more like how we all did in BW (in addition to having MMM as a viable option.)
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Russian Federation601 Posts
*before hots beta*
terrans is so hard need to 2x more actions and micro all units so hard
*after hots beta*
warhound no need to micro terran so bad
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I hope Blizzard listens to its beta testers. A researchable upgrade to tank damage/hitpoints + something like spider mines (maybe a patched widow mine) + something like the Goliath would make mech viable and fun. It would also make it like Broodwar, which is why Blizzard probably won't do it. But would it really be so awful to let Terran mech be Broodwar style if that's what the players/customers/fans want?
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This was a fantastic post Orb! I have very similar feelings on this.
My biggest reason why I dislike the Warhound is that it doesn't add anything to the idea of mech. Yeah its a factory unit, but its not a mech unit. Mech is a slow, expensive, and terrifying army once it gets maxed. That right there even brings in a storyline to the idea of mech. Which is being broken down with the addition of this new unit.
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On September 11 2012 21:34 xHQx wrote:
*before hots beta*
terrans is so hard need to 2x more actions and micro all units so hard
*after hots beta*
we needed more micro for Zerg/Protoss, not less for us
FIXED
After reading some comments on community mods I fouund StarBoW to really have potential. No a-move units to speak of, and a lot of the anti-micro mechanics in SC2 have been removed, while a lot of the gameplay improvements have been preserved. Seeing matches in this mod really reminds me of seeing (low-level) BW games.
If anything this proves that the BW type gameplay is not only possible, its also quite simple to achieve.
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I like the warhound. I think it needs some tweaks here and there but terrans really do need a decent A-move unit for more casual players.
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I have to agree that this post is kind of ridiculous and too little/too late. If you apply the standards you set in your post, you'd be complaining about half the units in the game. Its so funny that because terran is getting a unit they DON'T have to micro and is not completely useless, the community is up in arms. I'm not saying that its well designed, but even blizzard has said they WANT to give terran an A move unit. So that is where this game is going unfortunately; instead of elevating the difficulty and finesse of the other races, they want to bring terran down to that philosophy. But hey, maybe the foreigners can win things when the game is designed with that philosophy, it worked a little for WoL!
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As much as I agree with your overall argument, there's a CON in high difficulty mechanics that you're not giving its fair credit, and that's accessibility.
Case in point the success of League of Legends and its low difficulty mechanics and highly accessible game play.
Terran is the least accessible of the three races currently, which is why it is also the least popular globally on the ladder. Pros make it work and it's definitely a ton of fun to watch, but that fun does oftentimes not transfer over to the lower leaguers on the ladder.
That's where I think Blizzard is focusing right now with the Warhound, and that's also where Terran is struggling the most. Not at the top level where it's already super successful.
That's the argument anyway. Like I said already, I totally agree with your view and I absolutely HATE what the Warhound currently brings to the race, but there is an argument to be made for increasing the accessibility of not just Terran but Starcraft 2 in general, that in the OP you've completely avoided.
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The way I'd want the Warhound designed is this one : ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/69WBp.jpg)
Give it a siege mode and a railgun that does heavy damage to shield while in siege mode. Boom you got a mech unit.
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Orb you wrote an excellent and well thought out post which I whole heartedly believe. What I am more interested is how do you propose this change to the Starcraft 2 blizzard game design team. Changing the mindset of game design philosophy is a major challenge and somewhat almost impossible feat. Since you have the motivation, how will you implement this kind of change? Will your course of action have any kind of influence on our community and blizzard?
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Great post, both Warhound and Tempest are really shockingly badly designed units.
Would much rather like to see a Factory Spell caster or something like that.
Like, it's a mix between a Marauder and a Thor, i remember in WoL Beta they were so happy about how absolutely diverse and flexible all the units were.
Well this unit is the exact opposite of that, I'm really surprised they didn't give it a 80mm Strike Cannon or Concussive Bombs.
They could at least try to diverse it some more, like making it melee range or at least Something!
Give it like a mode where it hammers downwards dealing AoE to all nearby units, somewhat like The Shredder, that they first introduced. It's just mega bland and adds just nothing to do the game, in terms of excitement.
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On September 11 2012 23:03 ejozl wrote:
Great post, both Warhound and Tempest are really shockingly badly designed units.
Well, as unexciting as Tempest tickles are on Hots streams, at least those are new units, and there's some skill in using them. The Warhound ? In Heart of the swarm, the unit microes you.
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If there was no proscene at all, I would bet my dick that more people would play BW than SC2.
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On September 11 2012 23:19 how2TL wrote:
If there was no proscene at all, I would bet my dick that more people would play BW than SC2.
If there was no proscene 1v1 BW would have died long before it did. Most people in BW never played 1v1 and if they did they didnt enjoy it. The majority of people who played BW played UMS games, it was only the hardcore group who stuck with 1v1 and kept it alive as long as they did.
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So how is the warhound any different than Colossi?
It appears you want a new game, not a new unit. 1A units are already everywhere in WoL. Don't hold Terran to a higher standard.
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It seems most people seem to miss the point of the Warhounds existence. It IS meant to be in a similar role as the Marauder. BUT to encourage the Mech tech path, which includes the mech (sans bio) upgrades, by making it more mobile and less susceptible to the vast mobility of Stalkers and the penchant for Zergs to go mass Roach.
I am a Protoss player and I think the vids that WhiteRa has done lately indeed show that the Warhound is OP as it comes, BUT I still believe it has an important role in the Terran army. One that allows the Terran to move about more freely when going mech, rather then the quite stale inching forward that is quite common in mech oriented TvT and TvZ.
To address -orb-'s concerns directly about how entertaining units are in-game and so on, would this unit not address the 40 minute TvT games that seem so common? Hey, I love some of those games, especially any involving the initials MMA and MVP; but far too often they are just too dull.
I think the Warhound has vast potential to change a whole slew of match-ups. In its current stats it is an unrealistically powerful unit, which doesn't mean it cannot be molded to fulfill its destined role in various future epic games.
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I agree with the entire post by Orb.
The Warhound just needs to be axed in it's current form. No discussion or number-tweaking about that. It ads no debth to the game, but only retracts, becouse it replaces the Marauder and the Siege tank.
(On a minor side note, I am surprised why there is not re-buff to the tank. So many anti-tank things are being added to the game, it makes tanks almost not worth getting at all.)
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I'd actually go far as to say that ALL the SC2 units have been designed under your 1st philosophy: low difficulty mechanics leading to boring, bland, bad gameplay.
Case in point: the Collosus.
Take the cool spash damage of Reaver, change it a bit to be less random (and exciting). Fine.
Then remove all its weakness: make it fast, walk over cliffs, stack on top of units and tanky. Stupid.
Why do you expect this to change in HotS? It's still Browder. He clearly never understood SCBW design. I have extremely low expectations.
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EPT
